At the May 13-15 symposium on Fisheries and Food Security in China, 27 leading scientists and scholars from around the world gathered in Beijing to share research on the role of ocean fisheries, aquaculture, and marine ecosystems for improving food security in China.

Given China’s demographic changes, evolving nutritional requirements and dominant role in global fisheries, the key question of the symposium was whether marine ecosystems can be managed adequately to support the country’s future vision for domestic food security.

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The symposium highlighted new research on the provision of wild fish for human consumption and for animal feeds. Scholars also shared insights on China’s aquaculture sector, including the tradeoffs involved in using wild fish in aquaculture feed.

The three-day meeting focused on critical questions about the future of fisheries and food security in China:

• How will China's seafood consumption evolve with a population that is growing in both size and wealth?
   
• How can China manage its seafood industry to maximize its own food security now and in the future?
   
• Can aquaculture take pressure off of wild fisheries, or does the inclusion of wild fish in aquaculture feed put more pressure on wild fish stocks?
   
• Can marine ecosystems be managed to protect both ocean health and food security?
   
• How does the global fish trade, including demand for luxury and medicinal seafood products, shape China's fish production industry, and vice versa?

Among the 26 participants were researchers and policy experts from Stanford University, Ocean University of China, University of Stirling, Shanghai Ocean University, University of Maine, South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute (CAFS), Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute (CAFS), Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, Stony Brook University, Xiamen University, Hainan University, Shandong University, Asia Pacific Fish Watch, Hong Kong University, International Institute of Sustainable Development, James Cook University, China Policy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre.
 

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In between meetings held at the Stanford Center at Peking University, participants traveled to Beijing's largest fish market, where they observed local offerings and discussed trends in the global seafood trade with fish vendors. 

The symposium, funded by the Lenfest Ocean Program and chaired by FSE director Rosamond Naylor, kicks off a multi-year series of research papers and international meetings aimed at advancing the science around Chinese fisheries and food security. This ongoing international project will be coordinated by Professor Naylor and by Dr. Ling Cao, a postdoctoral fellow at FSE.

In regions of rural China where health education is limited, parents know more about the nutritional needs of their pigs than of their own children. And while piglets are raised to be robust and ready to command high market prices, infants in this part of the world suffer from high rates of anemia and cognitive delays that put them – and the country’s economy – at risk, according to Stanford researchers.

Those researchers are now experimenting with ways to encourage parents to feed their children more nutritious food. And they’re hoping their results will push the Chinese government to implement policies to curb malnutrition, especially anemia.

“Anemia acts like an invisible drag on the Chinese economy,” says Scott Rozelle, director of the Rural Education Action Program (REAP) at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). REAP is a part of FSI's Center on Food Security and the Environment.

Rozelle and his colleagues spearheaded a survey of 1,800 babies in Shaanxi province that shows the scope and impact of malnutrition throughout the region. Their findings will soon be published.

A map of Shaanxi province, where the REAP survey was carried out. Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Despite China’s rapid economic growth in recent decades, anemia among rural populations remains widespread. Left untreated, anemia decreases oxygen to the brain and can hurt cognitive and physical development. The World Health Organization estimates that effective treatment of anemia can improve national economic productivity by up to 20 percent. Other research has shown that the long-term effects can be even greater.

But poor nutrition is only partially to blame for the high rates of cognitive delays that the researchers discovered. Rozelle and his team also found that most parents don’t spend enough time playing and talking with their babies. In general, parenting practices in the region do not involve providing babies with mental stimulation, which is also an important part of cognitive development.

Testing and treating 1,800 babies

Rozelle and his colleagues first set out to understand the scope of the problem by measuring anemia rates among rural Chinese babies. Between April and October, 2013, REAP administered the largest survey of rural baby nutrition ever conducted in China. Over the course of four weeks, a team of around 120 surveyors tested 1,824 babies in 351 poor, rural villages across Shaanxi Province.

The researchers found that in the region, where pig farming is one of the main industries, more than three times as many parents had accurate information about pig nutrition than about baby nutrition. When asked whether micronutrients are necessary for the healthy growth of baby pigs, over 70 percent of caretakers responded “yes”. But only 21 percent of caretakers believed that micronutrients are also important for human babies.

The researchers also found that 49 percent of the children in the survey had anemia, an additional 28 percent were "near-anemic" and 40 percent showed significant cognitive or motor delays. These rates exceed the global average for children and indicate widespread deficiencies in child nutrition in the region.

A REAP surveyor tests how a baby reacts to his own reflection. Photo Credit: REAP

The REAP team then set up an experiment. One third of households were given a free daily supply of nutritional supplements for their children. Another third were given the same free supplements, and were enrolled in a text message reminder program. A final third of households served as a control group. The study is ongoing through April, 2015, but 12 months into the program, the researchers have found that the supplements have reduced anemia rates by 28 percent, although cognitive delays have persisted.

Anemia linked to poor diets

In contrast with their children, the parents who participated in the survey seemed to be well-fed and showed relatively low levels of anemia (19 percent). Many also reported purchasing expensive baby formula for their children, indicating a willingness to spend financial resources on child nutrition. The problem therefore seems to be not one of poverty, but rather one of information: parents are unknowingly feeding their children food that is lacking in iron and other micronutrients.

The nutrients missing from the babies’ diets are plentiful in solid foods such as fruits, vegetables, and lean meat. International standards for child nutrition advise that complementary foods be introduced to infants at around six months of age. By one year of age, solids should make up more than half of a child’s diet.

Parents in the REAP study, however, waited until between one year and 18 months to introduce solid foods. Many mothers stopped breastfeeding at six months, switching their babies to diets consisting mostly of rice porridge or wheat-flour based soups.

Many parents said early childhood diets were unimportant for healthy development.

“I don’t think the foods he eats matter since he doesn’t eat that much,” one parent told the researchers.  Another insisted, “Formula and porridge are good enough for my baby. He is always happy after mealtime.”

The “Hidden Hungry”

Sometimes described as “hidden hunger,” micronutrient deficiencies like anemia can go undetected because those afflicted often look healthy. Young children can appear to be well fed or even overweight, but still lack critical nutrients for normal development. In remote places where blood tests are unavailable, it can be impossible to tell that a child is anemic.

A nurse tests a child's blood for signs of anemia. Photo Credit: REAP

But about 25 percent of the world’s population is anemic, making the condition the most common form of malnutrition. About 25 percent of people are anemic worldwide, including half of pregnant women and 40 percent of children under the age of five.

The effects of anemia, however, are most severe among infants and toddlers. The damage it causes is difficult to reverse after the first several years of life.

Nutritional Myths

Rozelle’s team found several misconceptions about infant health and nutrition. One myth was especially common: that babies cannot digest solid food until they can walk.

“I wouldn’t dare give her anything before that,” said one parent. “Soft, clean foods are good for my baby. Hard foods are not healthy.”

Some parents even assumed that soft foods were better for their child’s cognitive development. “A good way to make him smarter is to feed him starches and rice. You can’t feed him hard food,” explained a mother about her young son.

The interviews also highlighted a lack of knowledge about malnutrition, and about the links between nutrition and health. “Genes cause malnutrition,” said one mother. “You’ll know if your skin turns pale and you become really thirsty.”

Another answered, “[Anemia] is caused by not eating enough.” When asked how anemia is treated, answers included drinking sugary water, adding red sauce to food, eating peanuts, getting a blood transfusion at the hospital, and taking traditional Chinese medicine.

In reality, anemia can be treated at home with a daily low-cost iron supplement (like the one being distributed as part of the REAP study), or simply by adding more iron-rich foods to a child’s diet.

 “No one ever told me how to feed my baby”

The pervasiveness of misinformation about baby nutrition stems from a lack of access to health and nutrition education. As one mother explained, “No one ever told me how to feed my baby.” The majority of interviewees reported relying on older family members for guidance on how to feed and care for children.

Local doctors do little to encourage proper child health care. Many prescribe medicines to treat immediate symptoms of malnutrition, such as colds or diarrhea, without addressing underlying issues.

One parent whose baby was found to be anemic reported, “The doctor never said anything to help me understand my child. He just told me to buy some rice powder and medicine.”

A mother participating in the REAP study answers questions about her baby's diet. Photo Credit: REAP

Other parents refuse to see a doctor at all. An interviewee with two young sons admitted to having never taken her children for a check-up for fear that her fertility would be monitored under China’s one-child policy.  Some mothers said they relied on traditional Chinese medicine to treat health problems rather than visit doctors.

Parents also frequently relied on information from local baby formula sales representatives. When asked how she makes decisions about her baby’s health, one mother reported, “I read the booklets at the formula store for information.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, this same mother was late in introducing solid foods to her child, and during the interview fed her 15-month-old child a type of formula that stated clearly on the label that it was suitable only for babies up to 12 months of age.

“The formula salesperson said to ignore that,” she explained.

Nourishing the Future

The REAP team designed an experiment to tackle both problems: infants’ poor diets and parents’ lack of nutritional knowledge. The project, called Nourishing the Future, was funded by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, UBS Optimus Foundation, China Medical Board and others.

A NurtureMate nutritional supplement packet, made by Heinz. Photo Credit: REAP

Each household in the study, with the exception of a control group, received a one-year supply of daily supplement packets called NurtureMate, manufactured by Heinz, another partner in the project. The powdered mix of iron, zinc, folic acid, and vitamins can be added to milk or formula, or sprinkled on porridge.

In addition to supplements, the treatment group received instruction in the basics of childhood nutrition. At 8:00 every morning, half of the treatment group also received a daily text message reminder to administer the packets: “Have you taken your NurtureMate today? Your baby needs the nutrients to grown strong and stay healthy!”

Text message reminders appear to have been modestly effective in improving program compliance. Caregivers who received the reminders gave their baby the micronutrient supplements, on average, 10 percent more often over the course of the first six months of the study. So far, however, this improved compliance has not led to a corresponding fall in anemia rates.

Other factors influence infant development

Although anemia rates fell among the two treatment groups, Rozelle’s team found no cognitive improvements.

“It’s still early, but it’s becoming clear that nutrition is not the only piece of the puzzle,” says Alexis Medina, the project manager of Nourishing the Future. “Several things affect brain development in young kids. One is nutrition. Another is the mental stimulation that children get through games, toys and face-to-face interaction with adults.”

The babies Medina and her team evaluated had very few toys or books at home, and received minimal attention from their caretakers in terms of playing, singing and talking.

“A lot of parents we talked to didn’t think much about whether they were playing with their kids enough,” Medina said. “But some actually thought it was a waste of time. We had several mothers tell us, ‘Babies don’t remember much when they’re young, so I don’t bother talking or reading to [my baby]. They can’t understand me yet anyway, so what’s the point?’”

Changing policy

With its first high-quality data sets in hand, REAP is now looking for long-term answers to the child malnutrition epidemic in China.

“Sure, we can help the 1,800 babies who are participating in our study now, but what about the other 10 million babies just like them?” asks Rozelle. “To reach all of China’s at-risk babies – that’s our ultimate objective. And to do that, we need an effective government program.”

In fact, the Chinese government has already unveiled a new pilot program that aims to provide every rural baby living in poverty with a free daily nutrient packet. But instead of delivering the packets directly to households, families have to travel several hours to the local county seat to pick up their packets. To date, the pilot has been rolled out in about 350 poor rural counties, with another 300 scheduled for 2014. But the government pilot doesn’t include any baseline research, and thus lacks important data on the health impacts and cost-effectiveness of this type of nutritional intervention.

The scant data available suggests that only a small share of eligible families are actually making the effort to pick up their packets. This is the gap REAP is looking to fill with its studies. Rozelle hopes that REAP’s new data on baby nutrition will help shape the government’s pilot program as it grows.

REAP has a long history of pioneering research and impacting national policy around rural education and health in China. Between 2008 and 2012, REAP surveyed 60,000 rural Chinese school-aged children and found that 30 percent were anemic. That study helped influence the government’s decision to launch a ten-year, nationwide school lunch program funded at more than $20 billion.

“The Chinese government has identified early childhood nutrition as a key policy priority in the coming years,” Rozelle says. “However, we believe they will need help figuring out the best way to implement their policy ideas. This is where REAP can help, by providing evidence-based solutions.”

Updates about the Nourishing the Future program, along with results of the baseline survey, are available on REAP’s website.

Laura Seaman is the Communications and External Relations Manager at Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment. She can be reached at lseaman@stanford.edu

 Research contact: Alexis Medina: amedina5@stanford.edu

Has the global food price bubble  burst, and if so, does it matter? In the first installment of FSE's new Food and Nutrition Policy Symposium Series, Professor Thomas Hertel of Purdue University and Professor Johann Swinnen of Leuven University outlined global trends in the cost of food, and explained how a drop in prices after the food price shocks of 2007-2008 might affect global politics and economics.

What drives food prices?

As population growth and rising incomes put pressure on the global food supply, many scholars consider high food costs to be the "new normal," especially following the food price shocks of 2007-2008. Professor Thomas Hertel challenged this view, saying that "To look forward 45 years, you have to look back 45 years" at what factors actually impact food prices.

Prices for many food commodities fell between 1961 and 2006, despite strong population and income growth, because the world was able to triple crop production during the same period. Since the recent price spikes, the "food price bubble" seems to have burst, with prices falling steadily since 2009.

Although population will continue to grow over the next several decades, the rate of growth is slowing worldwide and is mostly concentrated in developing countries, where per capita purchasing power is relatively low. This minimizes the pressure that population growth puts on the global food supply.

Economic factors may be more influential. "For the first time in history," Hertel said, "income will surpass population as a driver of global food demand." As countries move up the income scale, they consume richer diets of input-intensive products like meat, dairy and processed foods.

Energy prices also influence global food costs. As oil and gas prices rise, demand grows for alternative fuels like ethanol. Half of the increase in corn production over the past several decades came from the growing demand for ethanol, which was fueled by government mandates and which drove up the global price of corn. These mandates have been rolled back in recent years, however, and demand growth for biofuels has waned.

Hertel added that issues around climate change, urbanization, water supply, food waste and deforestation may also impact global food prices in the future.

Many scholars point to crop yields as a way to close the gap between food supply and demand and keep prices low. But Hertel cautioned that scientists and policymakers may be constrained by technical and economic limits.

To further increase yields "is a bigger job than simply doing some more science in the lab," Hertel said. But he noted with optimism that new investments in research and development have risen sharply from both the public and private sector, particularly in countries like China, India and Brazil where food security is a pressing issue. 

Impacts of the food price bubble

Professor Johann Swinnen explained that if the food price bubble has in fact burst, the next several years are likely to bring a shift in the politics and economics of global food issues.

The recent bubble coincided with an increase in both policy attention and donor funding to combat food insecurity - a focus that has benefitted both farmers and consumers, but that could wane as prices fall.

While the high prices of 2007-2008 benefited farmers, they in turn hurt low-income consumers in urban areas. And because people in high-density areas find it easier to organize and voice their concerns over government policies, they are more likely to capture media attention.

This "urban bias," as Swinnen described it, influenced policymakers to respond to the heavy media coverage. His team found that after 2007, agricultural funding from the World Bank, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) all rose sharply. The percentage of global development aid targeted toward agriculture also grew.

Swinnen described the social and political conditions of 2007-2008 as a "perfect storm" that shifted the attention of policymakers toward global food security investments. Paradoxically, Swinnen explained, this policy response to urban unrest over food prices ultimately benefitted both rural and urban populations, by boosting agricultural investments for food producers while also helping lower costs for consumers.

 The Food and Nutrition Policy Symposium Series will run for three years and will consist of a total of ten lectures spanning a wide range of issues around global food and nutrition policy. It is funded by Zachary Nelson, '84 and Elizabeth Horn. The series follows on the successful two-year Global Food Policy and Food Security Symposium Series which concluded in May 2013 and was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Eyeglasses boosted the standardized test scores of rural Chinese schoolchildren as much as 18 percent in just six months, according to a large-scale, ongoing study led by Stanford researchers.

"The evidence is overwhelming," said Scott Rozelle, co-director of the Rural Education Action Program (REAP), a coalition of Chinese universities and Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies that works to improve education and health in rural China.

The initial test scores for nearsighted students hovered around 68 percent. After receiving glasses, average scores soared to 86 percent. "You do these simple interventions and a child's whole life changes," Rozelle said. "It's fantastic."

REAP scholars partnered with Chinese ophthalmologists and scores of graduate students to orchestrate the massive project, the first to examine vision problems in rural China.

In 2012 and 2013, the team screened the vision of approximately 20,000 fourth and fifth graders in rural Shaanxi and Gansu provinces and doled out more than 4,000 pairs of eyeglasses. They discovered that 25 percent of the students were nearsighted, but only one in seven of those nearsighted students had the glasses they needed.

"There's a huge amount of unmet need," said Matthew Boswell, a REAP project manager based at Stanford.

The results may seem intuitive. Yet, helping the millions of nearsighted children in rural China is anything but easy, the REAP team discovered. Few of these rural children (and adults) know they are nearsighted – the world, to them, is naturally blurry. In addition, eye doctors are concentrated in the populous coastal corridors or regional "county towns," often dozens of miles by bus from the homes of rural Chinese families, Boswell said.

Basic eyeglasses cost between 200 and 500 yuan ($30 to $80), a price out of reach for many, he said.

The researchers also struggled to counter pervasive superstitions about eyeglasses.

For example, many rural Chinese residents believe that glasses make children's' vision deteriorate, relying on the observation that vision generally worsens with age, Boswell said. In addition, many Chinese do "eye exercises" by rubbing their eyes, cheeks and temples each morning, a practice they believe improves vision, he said.

They also face political struggles: China's rural health care program doesn't pay for vision care. "We could tell health or education officials until we were blue in the face there was a high level of need for vision care in rural communities," Boswell said. "But if your findings are not attached to something they care about, it's hard to make them listen."

Hence the connection to the test scores, a highly valued measurement by Chinese policymakers. The REAP team taps its large network of Chinese academic collaborators to translate its research results into policy reform, a process that is often successful, Rozelle said.

REAP is currently analyzing alternative ways to boost the delivery and acceptance of eye care, Boswell said. The original study assigned nearsighted students into six groups.  Researchers gave one-third of the students glasses; one-third received a voucher to purchase glasses; and another third remained untreated. Then, half of the students in each group received training about the causes and treatments for vision problems.

The training failed to significantly affect whether students wore the glasses, Boswell said.  The students who had to invest time to acquire glasses using a voucher demonstrated similar usage rates as students who received free glasses, he said.

Among a variety of other initiatives currently underway, the REAP team is training Chinese teachers to conduct simple vision tests, Boswell said.

"It's an extreme feel–good example," Rozelle said. "You put the first pair of glasses on a kid … and then a huge smile lights up their face."

Becky Bach is a writer for the Stanford News Service.

America may have legitimate competitive reasons to worry about the number of computer science and engineering graduates from elite Chinese and Indian universities – the figure dwarfs that of U.S. students with similar degrees.

But a new book by Stanford researchers and others says that the concern that these countries will develop their own centers of high-tech production and innovation and draw research, development and scholarship away from American shores is still premature.

The research, a multidisciplinary look at the growth of higher education in the world's four largest developing economies – Brazil, Russia, India and China (known collectively as the BRICs) – analyzes the quality of institutions, the quantity of people getting degrees and equal access to education.

The book, University Expansion in a Changing Global Economy: Triumph of the BRICS?, is published by Stanford University Press.

"In the past 20 years, university systems in these big countries have just exploded," said Martin Carnoy, a Stanford professor of education and one of the authors. Carnoy is also an affilate of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

"So the questions are why did it happen and what are the implications? And specifically, what are the implications for the U.S. if the market is flooded with new scientists and engineers? Are we going to be overwhelmed? What happens to their societies if all the energy is focused on elite institutions," Carnoy said.

The researchers approached their questions with the belief that societies, and governments, can be judged by the way they invest in and organize their public higher education systems.

For example, how well these countries create a labor force that is competitive in the information age depends on the quality of higher education. Whether people have equal chances to succeed relies on having colleges that are accessible to even the poorest students. And how effectively a country expands its university system may determine how successful it is at growing a robust economy and competing with the United States and Europe, the scholars argue.

"If you have economic growth and provide educational opportunities, you're perceived as a legitimate, successful government," Carnoy said. "So our theory was, if you can pull this off, if you can successfully expand your university systems, you are likely a pretty efficient government."

BRIC undergraduate education increased from about 19 million students in 2000 to more than 40 million students in 2010. The largest increase was in China, which went from less than 3 million to almost 12 million bachelor's degree students during that period, the study says.

Financing elite schools

The study found that BRIC countries are pouring money into their elite colleges in an effort to create world-class institutions and have their graduates compete with the United States and Europe.

Researchers say the elite colleges are much better for the focused investment, and the engineers and computer scientists are graduating with similar competency and training as those from developed countries.

But the mass institutions are receiving fewer resources, the study says, and that's where most of the students go. In 2009, 2.1 million of the 2.5 million total bachelor's graduates in China matriculated from mass institutions, not elite ones. In India, it was 2.2 million of 2.3 million.

This widening funding gap between top schools and mass institutions has broad implications, the scholars argue. The gap has the potential to slow economic growth domestically, deepen income inequality and create less social mobility.

Students who go to the mass institutions aren't getting high quality, competitive educational experiences, the study says, and many of the students also get stuck with big bills as funding assistance is directed toward the elite universities.

"What happens, then, is they are doing a good job of educating students at the elite levels, but they are not doing a good job of educating students at the non-elite levels who are also fundamental for the economy," said Prashant Loyalka, a research fellow at FSI and one of the study's authors.

In absolute terms, the sheer numbers of students graduating from elite institutions in computer science and engineering majors in these countries is also high. In China, for example, the total number of computer science and engineering graduates from elite universities is more than the total number of such graduates from the United States.

But sustaining and building innovation hubs requires more than the elite, the researchers said. The engine of these new economies is the rest of the population – those that attend mass institutions.

"In the United States, we have relied on competent second-tier engineers. They are the guts of our system. We need good students in all fields in these second-tier universities because the top-tier universities just don't produce that many graduates. They simply don't," Carnoy said.

He warned that this redistribution of funds away from second-tier institutions is a concern in the United States as well. "To an extent the BRICs have to do it, because they don't have enough resources to go around. But do we have to do it? The answer is probably no. It certainly should be no," Carnoy said.

The research is one of the first empirical and comparative looks at the higher education systems across these countries, and relied on in-country interviews, surveys, data analysis and classroom observation.

Report card

Overall, the researchers found that significant challenges remain as these countries march toward creating universities that can rank alongside those in the United States and Europe.

China, the scholars said, is doing pretty well, but Russia and Brazil are question marks.

"Russia has provided the vast majority of its people with a high level of education, but it has lagged in terms of putting money into research," Loyalka said. "Brazil has a high-level of graduate education and research at its top-tier public institutions, and these institutions are receiving a lot of support. However, the vast majority of students attend private institutions, which are, on average, of dubious quality."

India, Loyalka noted, was surprising. Despite its very good technical universities, he said, "you have a small proportion of Indians going to those, and the mass institutions are of really poor quality."

"The higher education system in India does not appear to be well organized," Loyalka said.

Among other recommendations, the researchers said India should increase its graduate education and, along with Russia, increase spending on research.

The project began in 2007 as an interdisciplinary venture supported by FSI, and incorporated scholars in economics and international comparative education at Stanford Graduate School of Education, FSI and universities in Moscow and Beijing.

Several articles focusing on different aspects of the review also have been published over the past year. The most recent, which appears in the July/August issue of the journal Change, highlights the research on quality and quantity of graduates in engineering and computer science from the four countries.

Besides Carnoy and Loyalka, the scholars involved in the project include Maria Dobryakova, a research associate and the director for portals at the Center for Monitoring Quality Education at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow; Rafiq Dossani, a senior economist at RAND Corp. and former senior research scholar at Stanford's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute; Isak Froumin, a mathematician and director of the Institute for Educational Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow; Katherine Kuhns, who received her PhD in the International and Comparative Education Program at Stanford Graduate School of Education; Jandhyala B. G. Tilak, a professor at the National University of Educational Planning and Administration in New Delhi, India; and Rong Wang, director and professor of the China Institute for Educational Finance Research at Peking University.

Brooke Donald is the social sciences writer at the Stanford News Service.

China is indeed an intriguing potential role model for developing nations in quest of rapid economic growth and successful poverty reduction. It has not only sustained an average annual GDP growth rate of 10 percent between 1980 and 2011, it has also been extraordinarily successful at reducing poverty, taking more than 650 million people out of extreme poverty over the period. These are two extraordinary feats. It is, however, often said that China is a unique case, with few transposable lessons due to its exceptional size and past. With Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) at a time of economic takeoff and in need of sustained growth and massive poverty reduction, finding out if at least some lessons from the Chinese experience are transposable can be a useful contribution. There are no better researchers to inform us on this than Scott Rozelle and Jikun Huang. So, what they have to say is indeed important. In what follows, let me try to qualify and extend some of the lessons they are proposing.