Agricultural giant since 1983

Chapter 290 Wuchang Rice
Like many breakthroughs after the reform and opening up, this feast also started in Zhejiang. When Li Lei went to Zhejiang to discuss the rice purchase business, he heard from Lu Guanqiu a recent quantitative reform movement of collective enterprises in Zhejiang. It is also the first large-scale reform of property rights after the reform and opening up.

The so-called "quantitative reform" refers to the withdrawal of all or part of the collective capital of certain township collective enterprises after their assets have passed local law assessment, and the operators obtain the main equity of the enterprise by means of redemption; this reform was first carried out in Taizhou, Zhejiang It emerged in Yuhuan and Wenling counties, and it soon spread to the nearby Wenzhou area, where it was then extensively tested in collective enterprises throughout Zhejiang.

This is a property rights reform movement without strict regulations. In terms of specific asset evaluation, due to the lack of quantitative standards and evaluation systems, the quantitative methods of various counties and cities are various; most enterprises adopt the method of "gross estimation". Some counties rigidly stipulate that collective assets should be calculated on the basis of a 40% increase in book value. In fact, quite a few enterprises have increased in value several times or dozens of times after years of development.

A second light material company in Wenzhou area has quantitatively transformed all its more than 20 enterprises, and the asset evaluation value is based on the constant price in 1990.

The quantification plan of a textile company in Shaoxing is: quantify 10% of the company’s assets and convert them into 50 yuan as a collective stock. More than 200 employees in the factory will each contribute 5000 yuan, and the operator will contribute more than 100 million yuan to form a capital. After that, the new enterprise used the machinery and equipment of the original enterprise free of charge, and all expenses were borne by the old enterprise. After nearly a year of operation, the new enterprise produced amazing profits, while the original collective The company fell into a loss without any suspense. In another year, new companies "merged and acquired" old companies at very low prices.

By around 1996, 80% of the small and medium-sized collective enterprises in ZJ province had completed the transformation of property rights quantification, and multi-millionaires and billionaires appeared in batches; There were also many disputes.

This reform has never been publicly affirmed by the government, and it has also aroused fierce debate in the theoretical circles. Some people accused it of being a disguised form of privately dividing collective property and taking the road of privatization; support, saying that we should look back on such reforms, but we cannot go back.

Objectively speaking, Zhejiang’s quantitative reform movement must have involved a large number of privately divided collective property cases, but from another perspective, those bosses who have turned collective enterprises into private enterprises through property rights reform are more attentive to their enterprises than in the past, and their efficiency is higher than before. I don’t know How many times higher, led to the rapid economic growth of Zhejiang.

However, this change has been in the stage of underground operation, and most of the enterprises involved are collective enterprises, rather than serious state-owned enterprises. This scene is just an appetizer, and the serious main dishes haven't been served yet.

The policy environment in Zhejiang is loose, and Li Lei negotiated with the local area to purchase rice, and the matter was quickly settled. Then Li Lei went to Hunan, and first went to Yuan Lao to see the effect of the slow-release fertilizer. Yuan Lao praised this fertilizer. He continued, "Using your slow-release fertilizer, the number of effective ears per mu has increased by 20.00%, the yield has increased by 15.00%, the thousand-grain weight has increased by 12.00%, and the amount of chemical fertilizers has decreased by 18.00% to 24! The effect is better than what we used before. The chemical fertilizers are much better!"

"It's just that the price is still too high. It's a bit difficult for us to do breeding, let alone use it for ordinary people. It would be great if the price can be lowered!" This is the only thing Yuan Lao feels regretful about. Slow-release fertilizers are good Good, but ordinary people still can't afford it.

"Any new product is like this at the beginning, and it will be fine in the future. Teacher Jiao called me overseas two days ago, saying that a new generation of slow-release fertilizers has been produced, and he will return to China after a while to bring the samples. Here you are, the price of this batch of samples is lower, and the effect is better! Wait for a few more generations of research and development, and sooner or later the common people will be able to use it!" In the future, the slow-release fertilizer can even increase the rice yield in the experimental field by more than 30.00%. Reduced by 40.00% to fifty, the current effect is nothing!
"Okay, when will Gao Liang come to Changsha? I'll pick him up then!" Mr. Yuan was overjoyed when he heard that. As long as it is good news that can increase rice production, he attaches great importance to it.

"No need, people from our Changsha branch can pick it up!" How about Li Lei so that Mr. Yuan can pick it up in person?But he couldn't push it away again and again.

After talking about the fertilizer, Li Lei talked about the business of the trip again, and Yuan Lao was also very happy when he heard it, "Now the rice output has increased, but it is getting more and more difficult for farmers to sell grain every year. Would you like to Harvesting food is a good thing, I must support it!"

With the support of Mr. Yuan, the province of Hun also welcomed Li Lei very much. After staying in Changsha for a few days, the matter of purchasing rice, wheat, and corn in Hunan was also settled; before leaving, Li Lei asked again Elder Yuan had another matter, and then took his autographed letter and walked around Hubei, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and other places, spreading his own grain purchase points around.

When he arrived in Guangdong, grain prices really rose as he expected. In the past two months, the average grain price rose from 0.935 yuan/kg to 1.080 yuan/kg, an increase of about 16%. The daily change or even several prices per day has only been seen since the reform.

This food price surge will continue until 95, and finally reach the highest level since the reform and opening up of 2.155 yuan/kg, which is more than doubled than before the release of grain purchases. There was another sharp decline.

However, the biggest advantage of the price increase is not that farmers take it, but it goes to the circulation link. This is also a common thing in the agricultural field. Producers are the slowest in news and have the worst bargaining power. Food in China is getting more expensive every year, but farmers are still poor. This is not only a problem in China, it is the same all over the world, and the profits are taken by the intermediate links.

Take coffee as an example. According to Oxfam’s investigation report on coffee circulation, it can be seen how many links have passed between producers and consumers, and how many times the price has doubled.

Small coffee plantations in Uganda, Africa, sell coffee beans to local second-hand traffickers at a price of 14 cents a kilogram, and second-hand dealers sell them to processing plants at a price of 19 cents a kilogram; Cents, below this price they have no profit, above this price, their coffee beans cannot be sold, the market has nailed their profits.

The processed coffee beans are packed in plastic bags and transported to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, at a cost of two cents per kilogram. At this time, the price of a kilogram of coffee beans is 26 cents, which is almost double the price sold by the plantation. ; then Ugandan coffee exporters can get ten dollars per ton, which is a profit of one cent per kilogram.

Before being officially exported, these coffee beans still need to go through links such as selection, destruction of inferior coffee beans, grading, and confirmation. $1.64, more than ten times the initial purchase price.

And when these coffee beans are ground into powder, packaged and put on the shelves, the price presented to the final consumers is as high as 26.4 US dollars, which is almost [-] times the price of small coffee plantations!
Through this process, it can be seen that the food supply system is a funnel-shaped model. In the supply chain from farmland to table, the initial producers and final consumers are the largest, while the processors, producers, and distributors in the middle The merchants have gradually decreased, and the least number are large buyers and wholesalers.

Long-distance transportation, processing and other processes require a large amount of capital, and the barriers to entry are extremely high, and ordinary enterprises cannot operate. At the same time, the larger the scale of the enterprise, the more transportation and warehousing business, the lower the average cost. Therefore, the ultimate power in the field of grain circulation is in the hands of In their hands, giant companies such as the four major grain merchants of ABCD, United Fruit Company, and Nestle play such a role. When there are fewer and fewer companies that control the channel between growers and consumers, they will have control over the growers. The dual powers of farmers and consumers, using monopoly to hold growers and consumers tightly, earn the most lucrative profits.

That's why farmers are becoming less and less profitable. Sometimes they would rather the fruit rot in the field than collect it, but the fruit in the supermarket is getting more and more expensive. Consumers will encounter price killers if they choose any kind of fruit. The phenomenon of thorns, even in the Internet age, consumers can directly connect with growers cannot avoid this phenomenon.

At this time, the control of growers and consumers has become websites, logistics companies, and promoters. Otherwise, there are so many fruits of the same variety in the market, why can yours be seen by consumers?All of these need to be paid for. The phrase "Is the big black plum plum sweet" cannot be said for nothing. Most of the anchors who bring goods online will not serve the growers for free.

Fortunately, the country still has a policy of guaranteed minimum price purchases for staple food growers. Otherwise, the life of staple food growers will be even more difficult, but the guaranteed minimum purchase is only for specific products, and commercial planting is not such a good thing. So there is a case of sugar oranges turning into murder oranges.

Li Lei is also powerless to change this situation. At best, he can make his business a little more conscientious, achieve scale before other companies, and then take care of the interests of growers and consumers a little bit.

After arriving in Guangdong, I chatted with the employees of my own company and Wang Shi and others, and found that reforms are also going on here. For the first time in Guangdong, the word "laid-off" appeared. Some state-owned enterprises with poor management began to lay off employees. They or Only pay basic living expenses to employees, or adopt a direct buyout model. For example, the radio factory signed a buyout agreement with more than 300 workers, and paid [-] yuan to workers every year for seniority compensation. After receiving the money, these workers It has nothing to do with the enterprise at all, and they will all have to fend for themselves in the future.

This policy has not encountered much resistance in Guangdong. First, seniority compensation has been paid out in full, and there are very few deductions. Second, these skilled and experienced workers have long been working part-time outside After working part-time, even if you leave the factory, no matter if you go to a private enterprise or a foreign-funded enterprise, you will not have to worry about finding a job, and you can also earn higher wages. Some even start their own businesses with compensation, and some lucky ones take advantage of the wind Then, a few years later, he became a millionaire.

However, when this policy was transferred to the north, especially in the northeast, it aroused strong opposition from workers, because workers in these places, especially in old industrial bases, have long been accustomed to living in factories as their homes and passing them down from generation to generation. Throwing them out of the factory all of a sudden, they don't know what to do. What's more, the economy in these places is not active enough, and there are not so many jobs for them to re-employ. Coupled with people like Qu Wanting's mother, the layoffs in the Northeast The workers are facing a severe survival crisis, and they will naturally not support it.

Li Lei also went to meet Xiao Ma and the others. Xiao Ma has graduated this year and has joined Runxun Company as a programming engineer under the arrangement of his family. It seems that he has no plans to start a business at the moment; Zhang Zhidong went to South China University of Technology for further study, and Xu Chenye I was also admitted to the computer department of Nanjing University as a graduate student. It is estimated that it will be three years before they want to reunite. The legend of the Tencent Five Tigers has not yet begun.

After staying in Guangdong for a period of time, Li Lei flew directly to HLJ, landed in Harbin, and then got on the car of the local branch. After a brief understanding of the operation of the HLJ branch, he went to the southwest of Harbin the next day. 120 kilometers of Wuchang.

Wuchang has just been withdrawn from the county and established as a city. The soil here is fertile and the climate is suitable, which is very suitable for growing rice. People have planted rice here since the Bohai Kingdom in the early Tang Dynasty. The rice produced here became tribute rice during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty. Once known to the people of the country.

After the founding of New China, the state invested huge financial, material and manpower to develop the Northeast. The rice planting area in Wuchang continued to expand. to a tenth of the entire HLJ.

In the future, any rice company would like to occupy this golden land, and now Li Lei is here for this matter.

But now, the Wuchang rice that everyone is familiar with in the future has not yet been cultivated, so the first thing Li Lei did after he came to Wuchang was not to talk to the local leaders, but to go to the Agricultural Technology Extension Station of Longfengshan Township. The fragrant Wuchang rice is born here.

"Excuse me, is Station Master Tian there?" Li Lei walked in with the letter written by Yuan Lao.

(End of this chapter)