INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY | 19 • €n aistan, the sample was selected using a traditional screener survey with uestions related to household demographics, crops and livestoc, main income sources, and wealth indicators­ ˆs a supplement to this pro- cess, village leaders and community representatives were consulted to help ensure local ownership and eliminate households with large landholdings­ Œhe specific sites selected for the Smallholder ‰iaries within each country also broadly reflect †‡ˆ’s global segmentation of smallholder households noncommercial smallholders, commercial smallholders in loose value chains, and commercial smallholders in tight value chains­ †‡ˆ’s focus is primarily on the lower-income, more vulnerable groups of farming families (i­e­, non- commercial smallholders and commercial smallholders in loose value chains), as the relatively smaller percentage of commercial smallholders in tight value chains are liely to benefit from a number of interventions and developments in value chain finance­ ˜ampula rovince in –o—ambiue is the least devel- oped of the three regions in terms of agriculture, with almost no use of agricul- tural inputs and limited access to irrigation and marets, unlie the –beya region in Œan—ania­ Southern un„ab, aistan, has the most robust agricul- tural maret, even in the relatively less-developed (compared with ˜orth of the province) Smallholder ‰iaries site­