In this paper we proposed a multicriteria index to evaluate rural social welfare. This index was named "rural welfare". We took into account some criteria related to health, work, infrastructure and type of habitation. We used the classical MACBETH approach and an optimistic variation to determine the weights. The last one uses the most favorable weights (for each farmer) belonging to an interval defined by the MACBETH, instead of the MACBETH weights themselves. This approach was motivated by an optimist behavior assumption. This premise is justified as the field researchers noticed that the rural producers overvalue their belongings and under-evaluate things that they do not have. The results showed that the rural welfare has, in average, growth tendency for the group of family farmers under evaluation.
multicriteria; optimistic evaluation; MACBETH
