Agricultural production plays a strategic role in ensuring food security, income and employment for rural households across developing countries. Smallholder farming systems are complex, and efforts to transform them are undermined by climate change induced shocks as well as long-term changes. We employed a multi stakeholder approach to develop an inclusive sorghum value chain for effective transition towards more diversified, resilient and climate smart crop production in Nongoma and Clau Clau villages, in KwaZulu Natal and Mpumalanga provinces, South Africa. The coming on board of various stakeholders providing diverse support and services to the smallholder farming cooperatives helped to upscale sorghum production from the experimental trials, establish links with markets, train and capacitate the farmers in key aspects of project and business management. Consequently, the smallholder farmers are more equipped to adapt to climate change in terms of knowledge and skill sets, while livelihoods and food security are enhanced through crop diversification. We conclude that smallholder farmer support should go beyond basic research and extension, and multi-stakeholder and inclusive value chain development should be at the centre of efforts to build smallholder resilience to climate change.