ISLAMABAD: “Rural Transformation is pivotal to achieve food security, improve farmers’ income, reduce rural poverty and attain sustainability,” said China Centre for Agriculture Policy (CCAP) Director Dr Jikun Huang. Huang is also a professor at Peking University China and at Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resource Research Beijing. He was speaking at a seminar on ‘Inclusive Rural Transformation in Asia’ organised by newly established Planning Commission Centre for Rural Economy (CRE). The seminar was chaired by Planning Commission Food Security and Climate Change former member Mubarak Ali. The representatives of Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) were also present at the occasion. Huang underscored the importance and process of rural transformation in Asia and said that on the demand side, it was contingent on: demographic change & urbanisation, income growth, preference change, food diversification, food security, demand for biofuel and ecological services; that will be attained through addressing issues like sustainability of land/water/climate, decreasing farm size, rising wages, aging and feminisation. He briefed that structural changes’ response in major crops of Asian countries (maize, wheat, rice & other grains) accounts for 74% value share against 26% livestock value share of total production, since 1961 to 2013. The participants were apprised that the share of non-cereal products differ largely among different countries over the last 30 years- rapid transformation was achieved in countries like China, Indonesia, Laos and Vietnam; whereas moderate transformation was achieved in the rest of Asian developing countries including Pakistan. He also elicited that off-farm employment had increased significantly in China from 15% in 1980 to 60% in 2015, whereas in India it rose from 19% in 1983 to 32% in 2010. He further explained four key stages of rural transformation: staple food production, agriculture diversification, rising non-farm employment and integrated urban-rural sustainable development. At regional level, South Asia attained stage 3 lower level; Southeast Asia attained higher level of stage 3; whereas China attained stage 4 of rural transformations. According to Dr Jikun Huang, the major drivers of agriculture growth were: institutional transformation, innovative policies in agriculture market reforms, technology and inputs as well as investment in agriculture. He stated that China achieved rural transformation through: Institutional Change (land reforms 1978-1984), technological innovation (mid 1980s), market reforms (late 1980); and investment in agriculture portfolio (1990). He said the speed of agriculture transformation measured in production structure had important implications of dependency function on farmers’ income and rural poverty reduction. “In Asia particularly, the slow agriculture transformation achieved among countries like Pakistan, Philippine and Cambodia was due to slow rural poverty reduction; whereas, moderate agriculture transformation was achieved by countries like Laos, India, and Bangladesh with moderate rural poverty reduction,” he said. However, fast agriculture transformation was achieved by countries like China and Vietnam due to their rapidly reduced rural poverty reduction among Asian developing economies, he said. He stated that structural transformation (ST) including urbanisation and rural transformation (RT) were interconnected; and successful RT can stimulate economic growth and ST. ST can enhance rural transformation through labour-intensive industrialisation, he said. Fostering RT could improve food security, increase farmers’ income, reduce rural poverty and facilitate sustainable rural development. Dr Huang said that country/regional differences on food security, farmer’s income, rural poverty and sustainability could be largely attained by any economy by following pathway and speed of regional transformation stages. In addition, appropriate institution, policy and investment (IPI) matters needed attention to speed up the inclusive and sustainable rural transformation. Dr Mubarak Ali appreciated Dr Jikun Huang on delivering the comprehensive presentation and expressed that Pakistan may follow the Chinese model of rural transformation to achieve food security, improve farmer’s income, reduce rural poverty and attain sustainability because China accomplished the process of rural transformation in a very short period of time and the circumstances of Pakistan were very much similar to those of China at the time when it started the process of rural transformation. Published in Daily Times, November 9th 2017.