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Small-scale household pond aquaculture development has significantly contributed to Chinese food security, poverty reduction, and improved livelihood of farmers. Before the onset of the economic reform in 1979, markets were non-existent. We address the question of the importance of the part played by decentralized government in coordinating the economic activities from a planned to a market-directed economy in the aquaculture sector. In this case study, we have interviewed farmers and officials and used secondary official data in Shandong province. We find that coordination by local government has been crucial in developing small-scale household agricultural and aquaculture production in transitional economy, and enabling the market to become the driving force in the development of household pond aquaculture in rural China. The Chinese experience may bring valuable lessons for other developing countries, where hunger are endemic, and the smallholder farmers are the key target in poverty reduction.

"Had Sidney Webb chosen to retire from local government work in 1900, a most improbable event admittedly, he would have been able to do so with the sense of leaving a job well done. The results of his vigorous leadership of the Technical Education Board were obvious to all who knew something about English education. Polytechnics, evening schools, revitalised secondary schools, a robust and ever-expanding scholarship scheme - not to mention the London School of Economics and a reconstituted London University - all these were ample testimony to the work of one who had the well-being of the young people of his native city genuinely at heart." - Introductory paragraph.