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Over the last 15 years, the agricultural economics and development literature has amply highlighted success stories of smallholder farmers in developing countries, illustrating their increased engagement and integration with markets, in other words, higher rates of commercialisation. Yet, this seeming ‘success’ should not detract from the large proportion of farmers who, through engaging in high-value market chains, face high risks that often limit the extent of their engagement. This study, across four African contexts in Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, strives to better understand smallholder participation in agricultural commercialisation. Using new detailed cross-sectional household-level data, from the Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) consortium, collected over 2017–2018, we analyse assets as a determining factor for localised patterns smallholder commercialisation. Applying asset-based …