Smallholder Farmers’ Market Participation: Concepts and Methodological Approaches from Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper reviews the empirical evidence on smallholder farmers’ market participation focusing on cash/food crops and livestock in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with special attention on the methodological approaches employed in this region in an attempt to x-ray these methods, identifying their advantages and limitations and possible means smallholder farmers would be able to transit from subsistence to commercialised agriculture capable of lifting them out of poverty trap that seems to have engulfed many rural SSA. This paper recommends interventions geared towards improving smallholder farmers’ organisation, producers’ association and ensuring appreciable reduction in transaction costs and also improving farmers’ access to productive assets and improved technologies capable of stimulating profitable smallholders’ market participation.