This book examines agricultural development from a Chinese perspective and aims to aid the process in Africa. Comparing one centrally planned economy with 54 diverse African countries gives an insight into the Chinese developmental mindset. While China from the 1950s has deliberately developed its agriculture and extracted surplus from it to fuel its industries, Africa has generally failed to feed its population or to stimulate industrial growth.

Africa is now determined to stimulate agricultural growth and can learn from the Chinese experience, which feeds 20% of the world's population from 9% of the world's arable land. The Green Revolution resulted in rapid development in China but largely by-passed Africa. Other disparities include the slave trade, HIV/AIDS and colonisation, which have had negative impacts on Africa's ability to feed itself despite the abundance of land. Chinese national development policies emphasise food security and have invested to achieve that. Africa is relatively deficient in labour and capital and now needs to develop technologies to substitute, especially for capital. Improved irrigation, more efficient input use, multi-cropping and conservation agriculture are possibilities.

Since 2004, China's agricultural markets have been liberalised and there has been huge investment in roads. This has reduced transport costs and has connected smallholder farmers directly to the market place. China's success has been brought about at the cost of negative externalities including environmental degradation. The country has also reached its limit on expansion of its agricultural frontier and is now investing in agricultural production in other countries, including in Africa.