The Ferdi and AFD organized a workshop at the AFD in Paris on November 15, 2018, on “Agricultural value chain development and smallholder competitiveness”. Participating institutions to the workshop included Ferdi, AFD, the University of California at Berkeley, Leuven University, CIRAD, IFPRI and the University of Bordeaux, CERDI, the World Bank, the FARM Foundation, the Avril Foundation, and Proparco/ AFD. We report here on some of the major rationales for and results from this workshop.