Smallholder farmers in the region of Sub-Saharan Africa have begun to participate in global supply chains through applying contract farming (CF). The main aims of this paper are: to present a typology of CF and to describe the contract farming in Sub-Saharan African countries. This article has synthesised the fi ndings from contract farming agreements in Sub-Saharan African countries to form a conceptual framework of the determinants and dynamics of farmers’ participation in CF agreements. This article can be treated as an introduction to a complex comparative study of the Sub-Saharan African CF schemes and may spur further integrative analysis of the transformation in agriculture in developing countries.