On March 29, 2018, Professor HUANG Jikun，Director of China Center for Agricultural Policy at Peking University, gave a talk to the students of the South-South Insitute, governmental officials from developing countries with the topic of "Inclusive rural transformation: pathway, driving forces and impacts". Prof. FU Jun hosted the lecture.

With the largest number 800 million of farmers in the world, China used to be one of the poorest countries in the world. Poverty alleviation is a major task in China's rural economic work. Although Asia's economy as a whole is undergoing transformation, there are obvious differences in the speed of transformation among different countries. As one of the fastest developing countries in transition, China's path and influencing factors in the process of transformation can be used for reference by other countries.

Professor Huang stated that the agricultural transformation in Asia is a response to food demand and market transformation. In the past 60 years, the agricultural production structure in Asia has changed greatly, the proportion of grain output has declined, and the whole Asia is undergoing the agricultural transformation, which follows four stages: grain production as the main, diversified economy, non-agricultural employment growth, and urban-rural integration.

The four driving forces for the rapid transformation of China's rural economy are institutional innovation, policy innovation and investment innovation. He said that the household contract system, which was implemented in 1978, was the incentive of farmers'enthusiasm for production; the use of hybrid technology has greatly increased the total factor productivity of staple grain in China; the market reform accelerates the argricultral structure transition; and government's investment in agricultural infrastructure enlarges the area of irrigated land and thus improves production. 

Prof. Huang concluded that accelerating rural economic transformation can improve food security, increase farmers' income and contribute to sustainable development and poverty reduction in rural areas.