Biography

GOU Tianlai, Ph.D., is an associate professor and the director of Department of Rural Development, College of Urban & Rural Development. He has participated in many famous programs and projects.

In 2011, he drafted the 12th Five-Year Development Plan for Utilizing Foreign Loan and Grant for Ministry of Agriculture P.R. C., and this plan was issued by Ministry of Agriculture P.R. C. in 18, Jan, 2011.

Since 2009, he has been employed as consultant by Foreign Economic Cooperation Center (FECC), P.R.C. to conduct the baseline survey, the program monitoring, and the mid-term evaluation for generation income of farmers based on value chain, which enriched his experience in value chain because the program involved 26 agriculture companies and at least 12 crops and some herbs in Shandong, Henan, and Gansu provinces. In these years, he has also conducted other consultation projects concerning agriculture food value chain, such as making livestock production development plan for Sannong Group based on cost-benefit analysis and commodity governance analysis for quality control along pig value chain, making analysis impacts of benefits-sharing institution on vegetable quality, and selecting agriculture market construction location, a World Bank-loaned program in Hunan Province, through cost-benefit analysis and social equity analysis.

From 2005 to 2009, he conducted benefits sharing institution analysis along forestry commodity value chain. This program was funded by IDRC and WRI. In this program, game for profits among stakeholders along value chain was investigated deeply, market power of stakeholders was analyzed, the issue that how legislative power, judicial power and enforcement power concerning development of commodity standard influenced benefits sharing among stakeholders along value chain was explored, and informal and formal institutions that influenced benefits sharing among farmers, buyers, retailers and governments especially were deeply identified.

Moreover, Dr. GOU’s research experience has spanned a wide array of topic areas, including social assessment, community development plan, famers’ behavior, group lending for microfinance, urban agriculture and food safety, natural resources management and so on. He once was employed as consultant by AusAID, Plan (China), China International Poverty Reduction Center, and RECOFTC.