Having grown up in a smallholder farming family in rural Nepal and spent my career studying smallholder agriculture across Asia and Africa, I read this year's agricultural budget with mixed feelings. To be fair, there are several positive elements in the budget. The government has increased budget allocation for fertiliser procurement and domestic production, continued support for agricultural insurance, expanded irrigation investments, promised farmer identification cards, and proposed reforms to improve agricultural extension and market services. These are important investments, and they deserve recognition. Also, the commitment to presenting an Agriculture Bill and the warehouse-receipt financing system is a welcome step. But whether they will benefit smallholders entirely depends on how they will be integrated into their design and implementation. What concerns me more is the broader vision of agricultural transformation underpinning the proposed budget. The budget emphasises 'commercial agriculture', attracting private investment, and transforming agriculture into a profitable enterprise. Three specific provisions stand out. First, the government proposes incentive grants of up to 40 percent for agricultural investments of up to Rs 20 million. Second, it encourages land banks, agro-pooling, and the consolidation of unused agricultural land into commercial operations. Third, it explicitly signals a gradual phase-out of agricultural subsidies primarily going to smallholders. These measures may improve efficiency and attract private investment, but they also raise important questions about whether smallholders will benefit. While none of these policies are inherently bad, a critical question emerges: where do Nepal's millions of smallholder farmers fit into this vision? Although smallholders are not intentionally excluded, there is a risk that commercialisation will move faster than the institutions needed to make it inclusive and equitable. This matters because more than 65 percent of our population still depends directly or indirectly on agriculture. Farms are small and fragmented. Production systems are diverse and heavily influenced by geography. Rural livelihoods depend not only on farming but also on livestock, wage labour, migration, and remittances. Simply put, we cannot copy and paste agricultural models from countries with large-scale mechanised farming systems. These are lessons I learned from years of working with smallholder farmers in Asia and Africa through organizations such as IFAD, the World Bank, and CGIAR. In Ethiopia, for example, I worked on agricultural and land restoration programmes where the government was trying to improve productivity while maintaining the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. One lesson is that farmers are much more willing to adopt new technologies and improved practices when agricultural investments are combined with social protection and risk management. Similarly, in Niger and Nigeria, climate shocks, weak institutions, and limited access to finance often prevented farmers from benefiting from commercialisation efforts. Building resilience and reducing risk was key. Lessons from our neighbouring countries are equally important. In India, while working with vulnerable tribal communities, I saw that commercialisation works best when farmers are organised, connected to markets, and supported by strong local institutions. Market access alone is rarely enough. In Sri Lanka, I observed that strengthening farmer organisations and value chains was often just as important as increasing production itself. Across these countries, one lesson stands out: successful agricultural transformation does not happen because governments promote large-scale commercial agriculture. It happens because governments invest in helping smallholders become more productive, more resilient, and better connected to markets. This is where I think the budget falls short. What I find particularly striking is what is missing from the budget. There is very little discussion of women farmers, despite the fact that male out-migration has fundamentally transformed Nepal's agricultural sector. There is little discussion of youth engagement in agriculture, climate adaptation, or strategies for channeling remittance into agricultural investment. Migration has become one of the defining features of rural Nepal. Migration has created labour shortages that are increasingly constraining agricultural production. Any serious agricultural strategy must therefore invest in labour-saving technologies, farm mechanisation, local capacity building, and programmes that help women and youth farmers succeed. Equally important, Nepal must prioritize building institutions before aggressively pushing commercialisation. Commercial agriculture requires roads, irrigation systems, storage facilities, cold chains, aggregation centres, farmer organisations, extension services, affordable credit, insurance, and reliable buyers. Without these foundations, commercialisation can expose farmers to greater market risks while delivering few of the promised benefits. The budget lacks a clear roadmap for how millions of smallholders will be connected to the promised 'agricultural transformation'. Thus, commercialisation alone will not transform Nepal's agriculture. The real measure of success should not be how many commercial farms are established or how much private capital is mobilised. It should be whether the millions of smallholder families who still form the backbone of Nepal's agriculture are able to participate in and benefit from the promised 'agricultural transformation'. The future of Nepal's agriculture does not lie in choosing between subsistence farming and large agribusiness. It lies in helping millions of smallholders become productive market participants while maintaining resilience, food security, and rural livelihoods. Commercialisation should be a tool for empowering smallholders, not a pathway for replacing them. Dr Kafle is an Assistant Professor of Agricultural and Development Economics at Texas A&M University, USA