Although many sub-Saharan African countries have seen notable economic growth recently, this has not always translated into good poverty reduction rates. This chapter shows how China’s dramatic poverty reduction was largely driven by growth in smallholder farming, teasing out possible lessons for Africa. The Chinese experience underlines the importance of focusing on effective agricultural growth as a means of poverty reduction in countries where most people live in rural areas, as is the case in many African countries. The author cautions, however, against encouraging poor people to move off the land and out of agriculture before they have increased their incomes, as this can trap them in poverty. Instead, policies should promote high growth in agricultural productivity – particularly in basic food crops – coupled with diversification to enable the large farming population to generate a surplus, offer lower food prices for consumers and reduce the costs of industrial and service-sector development. The growing agricultural sector provides raw materials, capital and markets for manufacturing and other sectors that stimulate broader economic development and growth in off-farm employment; this, in turn, helps absorb surplus labour from agriculture. The challenge for Africa will be to avoid some of the negative by-products of the Chinese experience, which include environmental damage and growing inequity between rural and urban areas.