This paper considers a range of issues relating to the current status and future trends affecting smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, including the likely transitions that lie ahead for this sector. Smallholder agriculture has long been the dominant economic activity for people in the sub-Saharan region, and it will remain enormously important for the foreseeable future. The sector is highly heterogeneous and includes farms that are quite commercial in orientation as well as those that are rooted in quasi-subsistence livelihoods. This heterogeneity is often ignored in discussions of the importance of smallholder agriculture. Too often, these discussions argue that the sheer size of the sector implies that it must play a key role in growth and poverty reduction. The evidence here is mixed, however. The size of the sector does not, by itself, serve as evidence that public investment should focus on smallholder agriculture. Much more evidence is needed about the relative social benefits – measured appropriately – of investing in smallholder agriculture in comparison to other possible investments.