HEFEI - "Where we live can now be called the new village, just like the villa districts in big cities," said Wang Yaoxian, a farmer who lives in Changwang Village in Feidong County of Hefei, provincial capital of East China's Anhui province.

Since agricultural firms invested in the village, more than 500 farmers have left their farming lives and been employed in jobs. Along with Wang and his wife, local farmers are now living a happy life as industrial workers.

More such stories can be found in other villagers in the county. Nowadays, many leading agricultural enterprises of product processing are being attracted to invest there, including the world's biggest chicken farm for meat and China's largest processing plant of coarse food grain.

According to the county's Agricultural Commission, the development of agricultural products has helped Hefei update its agricultural structure and bring about a boom in secondary and even tertiary industries.

In 2011, Hefei saw a new phase of industrial management in agriculture, after long-term rural agricultural reform and development in modern agriculture.

Statistics from the Hefei Municipal Agricultural Commission showed that the total number of leading enterprises has reached 471 in 2011. Among them, two are county-level and 166 are city-level ones.