What is the GFM?

From grassroots action on farms to evidence-based decision making in policy and finance, the GFM unlocks change at every level.

It is designed to transform the farming system to an industry that delivers lasting benefits for nature, climate and people.

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The challenge

Farming drives many of today’s biggest challenges – from biodiversity loss and global warming, to water pollution and poor health. We all pay for the damage, through poor health and our taxes.

Farming could be the solution. But currently, unsustainable farming often pays better than regenerative farming, because the full social, environmental and economic value farms create isn’t measured. It stays invisible to markets, governments and consumers. Without visibility, there’s no reward for farming sustainably.

A common way to measure what farms really deliver would change that – making sustainable farming the financially rewarding choice.

The solution

Whole-farm measurement can help the whole value chain – including farmers, policymakers, financiers, supply chains and consumers.

A holistic and aligned approach supports:

  • Understanding: captures the state of the farm, good and bad
  • Decision making: Points to a starting point, prioritising effort
  • Monitoring: Tracks progress, catches problems early
  • Proof of value: Creates. evidence for finance, markets and rewards
  • Business case: Shifts economic advantage towards more sustainable farming

What do we mean by sustainability on farms?

  • Productive: Provides food, fuel and fibre for people today and in the future
  • Connected: Creates a positive impact on climate, nature and people – and visa versa
  • Holistic: Delivers positive social, environmental and economic outcomes
  • Resilient: Continually evolves with new challenges and changing needs
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Why is alignment important?

Right now, everyone’s measuring differently. Alignment is when separate things share the same direction, indicators or set of underlying principles; building commonality while embracing diversity.

Alignment can support:

  • A shared, holistic understanding
  • Communication and collaboration
  • A foundation for good measurement
  • Reduced duplication and data collection burden

Using the GFM

The GFM can be used directly for learning, discussion and evaluating existing tools and frameworks. It supports more holistic, outcomes-based approaches by identifying gaps and providing a common structure for alignment.

It can also be applied to support farm data collection and assessment. This requires additional metrics, methods and data interpretation.

Together, these approaches drive systems change.

Examples of direct uses:

  • Education: Builds shared understanding of whole-farm sustainability and supports training, teaching and communication across supply chains, policymakers and the public.
  • Mapping: review existing initiatives, datasets, tools and policies against a shared structure to reveal gaps, overlaps and coverage.
  • Alignment: Aligns organisations, tools and stakeholders around a common understanding of farm sustainability while checking for holistic versus narrow approaches.

Examples of applied uses:

  • Data collection: Guides what data can be collected, with users choosing their own indicators, metrics and methods.
  • Assessment: Supports the design of whole-farm sustainability assessments, with users defining their own scoring and interpretation.
  • Alignment and interoperability: Provides a shared structure for outcomes, categories, definitions and indicators to improve consistency and reduce duplication across datasets.
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Key features

Global Farm Metric

Holistic

Covers social, economic and environmental dimensions of the farm, recognising synergies and multi-stakeholder perspectives.

Aligned

Can be embedded within assessments, tools and frameworks, creating a common language to drive consistency and collaboration

Practical

Can underpin primary data collection that is useful and relevant at farm-level

Outcomes-based

Identifies shared goals across the farming industry and the indicators to monitor progress towards them

Inclusive

Inclusive of and applicable to all farming systems and landscapes

Evidence-based and evolving

Developed from farm trials and scientific research

Drives change

Enables collective action for nature, climate and people

The Global Farm Metric is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), unless otherwise stated. This means you are free to share and adapt our materials, provided you give appropriate credit and indicate if changes were made.