Successful commercialization of farming enterprises and farmer entrepreneurship are thought to embody the key features of structural transformation and provide a pathway out of poverty and subsistence agriculture for the rural farm households. The past decade has seen several African countries increase their agricultural growth, largely driven by increases in land area cultivated instead of productivity increases. The debate on whether Africa should pursue a strategy of agricultural transformation through large-scale or smallholder farming rages, with little attention to a special group of smallholder farmers that have transitioned to become medium- and large-scale farmers.

This survey was planned and executed in order to address key policy and research questions which have arisen as priorities for the research agenda, but for which there has been a lingering data gap.