It is not feasible to develop agriculture independently of industrialization in Lingshan county in South China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, the county’s Party chief, who is also a deputy to the National People’s Congress, said on Saturday.

Lingshan is an agricultural county with 91 percent of its 1.43 million residents living in rural areas. It is known as the hometown of lychee, milk buffalos and agricultural products.

“Any development that excludes the rural areas is meaningless for us,” said deputy Pan Xuehong.

“We apply the industrialization concept to develop agriculture,” she said.

Without processing and added value, agricultural sales are limited by freshness, Pan said. Added value can only be realized by processing that frees products from such a time limit. That would mean farmers’ incomes are less affected by the fluctuating market.

To guarantee the sale of local agricultural products, Lingshan helped to set up some leading flagship companies whose main businesses are processing well-known local products.

Pan believes that industrialization can facilitate agriculture’s development into mass production with higher quality.

“Supporting the leading agricultural companies is equal to supporting the farmers and agriculture,” said Pan.

The government allocates 3 million yuan ($476,000) each year to support the leading agriculture-related companies and holds festivals to promote local products.

There are nearly 290 agricultural processing enterprises in Lingshan and the output of those leading companies was as high as 2 billion yuan in 2011, bringing 7,900 yuan in net income to each rural household a year.

With more and more rural people getting involved in industry, 52 percent of their income comes from salaries earned from companies.

During the process, more and more people have returned home to work, which helps to address many social problems, such as left-behind children, said Pan.