BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Using science and technology to help people in poor areas become higher earners is one of China's achievements in poverty reduction.

Over the past few years, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the country's leading academic institution for natural sciences, has sent more than 300 poverty-alleviation officials to rural areas and helped people in four national-level impoverished counties to shake off poverty, said the academy's president Bai Chunli, at a press conference Friday.

In summarizing the academy's achievements and experience in fighting poverty, Bai said that the key lies in using science to promote industrial upgrading and sustainable development in poverty-stricken areas.

He highlighted the academy's poverty alleviation efforts in Shuicheng County in southwest China's Guizhou Province, where scientists found Kiwi fruit was a suitable crop for the local environment. They used their patented technologies to help local farmers develop kiwi farming, offering techniques and expanding planting areas. The fruit now is the main source of income for local people.

Another example is a fungicide developed by the academy's researchers, which can prevent cattle and sheep feed from rotting. The product soon became popular among farmers, and factories specialized in fungicide development were set up in the villages in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Bai also shared a cultivated water weed, which not only can be used to clean water but also to feed pigs, boosting the agricultural industry in many poor areas.

Yan Qing, a CAS official, said the academy's achievements in fighting poverty benefited from plenty of scientific results of more than 100 research institutes nationwide.

"The academy will continue to coordinate the superior resources and scientific research capabilities to make more contributions to China's rural vitalization," Yan said at the conference.