This book presents the proceedings of an OECD conference reflecting on how China can best manage its reform process under WTO integration. It is an invaluable analysis of farm and rural realities in today’s China and their ultimate implications for world trade.

China’s World Trade Organisation membership has brought unprecedented opportunities and challenges, propelling its agricultural development into a new era. China’s policymakers continue to face the twin challenges of raising farm incomes and restructuring the rural economy. Do economy-wide policies in China support the agricultural sector? What is the true extent of the "peasant burden"? What policies will most effectively promote the development of rural areas? What is the role of education in improving rural livelihoods and redeploying rural labour? What is the degree of market integration and how well are prices transmitted throughout the country?

These questions and issues were debated based on the papers reproduced in this publication. They offer the reader the fruits of timely analytical and strategic thinking by some of the world’s renowned experts on China’s agricultural policies and on methods of policy analysis.