The pandemic indeed reveals long-standing challenges in the development sector to empower smallholder farmers with stable market outlets, access to finance, technology, knowledge and job opportunity. While the world is undergoing multiple transformations due to COVID-19, this can also be a transformative time to unleash creativity and renewed cooperation to build smallholder resilience through an ecosystem approach for the diverse needs of 500 million smallholder households that are the backbone of world’s agricultural system.