Starting with vegetable greenhouses in 1988

Chapter 205 Confidence
“Of course. However, your greenhouse, like mine, has been used for a while, so a certain amount of depreciation will be deducted compared to a new greenhouse.” Li Zhe wasn’t a petty person, but he was worried that others might have some opinions.

"That's only right," Zhu Yimin said with delight. After what happened with the Zhou family, he felt the importance of sticking together even more.

His family lived alone, and nothing was easy for them in the village. During his time with the Li family, he experienced the benefits of sticking together; in Li Zhe's words, it was called teamwork.

Li Zhe was willing to teach him the techniques of growing vegetables in greenhouses and even gave him the opportunity to invest and become a shareholder. What reason did he have to go it alone?
After Lin Xiaohu's advice, Ge Qingshan finally understood. "Second brother, if I go to the credit union to apply for a loan to grow vegetables in greenhouses, will the loan be approved?"

Li Zhe replied, "As long as you learn the techniques of growing vegetables well and pass the company's technical assessment to become a technician, I guarantee you can successfully get a loan from the credit union."

"You want me to be a technician?!" Ge Qingshan shrank back, somewhat unsure of himself. "I didn't even graduate from junior high school, do you think I can do it?"

"As long as you can recognize all the commonly used characters and are willing to put in the effort to learn, everyone can do it." Li Zhe's gaze swept over the crowd; he wasn't just saying this to Ge Qingshan.

"This year, the scale of the greenhouses will continue to expand, and we definitely can't handle it all by ourselves. You've all been working with me for a while and have gained some planting experience."

My expectation for you this year is that you transition into technical staff, teaching your planting techniques to new employees and farmers. This will allow us to rapidly expand the company's planting scale. Furthermore, once you pass the technical assessment and become technicians, your salaries and bonuses will increase significantly.

This is why Li Zhe wanted everyone to invest; it wasn't just to increase the company's funds, but also to use shared interests to retain these relatives and friends with planting experience.

Only when everyone works together can they secure a place in the future off-season vegetable market.

By only hiring relatives and friends without giving them shares or high wages, Li Zhe simply cannot retain employees. By the end of this year at the latest, he will be all alone.

Li Zhe's idea had not been publicly proposed before, and those present began to whisper among themselves.

These people know best how profitable vegetable greenhouses can be.

Although we don't know Li Zhe's exact profits, he is definitely the richest man in Daying Village now.

Not only are outsiders envious, but even they, the insiders, are envious. Especially after working in the field for a while, many people have learned the techniques of greenhouse vegetable cultivation, and their hearts start to stir.

On the one hand, the allure of profit motivates them, and they also want to learn from Li Zhe and build their own vegetable greenhouse.

On the other hand, they were all Li Zhe's closest people, and they had learned vegetable greenhouse planting techniques from Li Zhe. They wanted to go it alone but were too embarrassed to do so, which had been quite a headache for them lately.

Li Zhe's words just now undoubtedly reassured them.

"Everyone, there's something else I need to say." Li Zhe cleared his throat, interrupting the discussion, and continued:

“Before the Lunar New Year, I met with Director Sun at the credit union. According to Director Sun, the loan policy has changed. Starting this year, there will be no more interest-free loans, and interest will need to be paid on loans.”

"Why are there no interest-free loans anymore? How much interest will it cost?" Lin Xiaohu had originally planned to take advantage of interest-free loans, but now that he heard that loans would incur interest, he was immediately displeased.

"I heard that the interest-free loans were suspended because there were too many bad debts from the previous years, and the credit union couldn't recover the money at all. As for the specific interest rate, it depends on the loan interest rate and loan term. I'll invite the credit officer from the credit union to come over sometime and give everyone a detailed explanation."

After Li Zhe finished speaking, he asked in return, "Who among you wants to borrow money from the credit union? Raise your hand so I can see."

"I want to take out a loan to build a greenhouse."

"I also want a loan."

With more than half of the people present raising their hands, Li Zhe knew what was going on.

Seeing everyone raising their hands to apply for loans at the credit union, Wang Xiuying felt a mix of emotions.

Both sons took out interest-free loans last year, without having to pay a single penny of interest. Logically speaking, this is a great thing; their two sons got the benefit that others couldn't.

However, she didn't play a positive role in this matter...

Thinking back to the commotion she caused last year to stop her son from taking out a loan, she felt a little embarrassed. She nudged her husband with her elbow and whispered, "How about we take out a loan too?"

In fact, Old Li himself had the same idea, but since both of his sons had taken out loans from the credit union, he didn't know if he, as the father, could also get a loan.

His wife's change, however, amused and exasperated him. He wanted to tease her, but he didn't have the guts. "Let's see," Li Zhe continued, "and another point is the vegetable cooperative. I hope that those who haven't joined yet will join and take on certain responsibilities and obligations. In the future, the cooperative and our company may have a closer cooperative relationship."

The vegetable company belongs to Li Zhe, who can hold absolute control, but the vegetable cooperative belongs to the collective. Therefore, the more people join their small collective, the more positions they hold, and the greater their say.

If one day Li Zhe loses indirect control of the vegetable cooperative, he might choose to withdraw. Of course, this possibility is unlikely to arise in the short term.

Jin Baiwan listened attentively and pondered the matter. He was definitely going to invest, but he was unsure how much to invest. He asked, "Brother Li, what is our company's main development direction this year?"

"It's very simple: grow as many vegetable greenhouses as possible. Actually, I've mentioned this before, but I wasn't very clear then. Today I'll explain it in detail." Li Zhe brought out a blackboard, took out some chalk, and wrote on it:
"The company has two development directions in the future. The first direction is self-production and self-sales. By the end of the year, our company will strive to expand to about 100 acres of vegetable greenhouses."

Wang Rongsheng said with some concern, "Second brother, building these 100 mu of vegetable greenhouses will cost at least 500,000 to 600,000 yuan. Even if we invest, we won't be able to raise that much money."

"Uncle, I've thought about this problem. One option is that after the company is established, I'll use my connections to get another loan."

Secondly, just like last year, we initially planted only one acre of vegetables in the greenhouse. After selling the greenhouse vegetables in November, we recovered some of our funds and were able to continue expanding. It's not about building a hundred acres of greenhouses at the same time.

If we were to expand our vegetable greenhouses by 100 acres all at once, not only would we lack the funds, but we would also lack the technical personnel. We can adopt a phased expansion approach. Furthermore, we will have our own sales channels.

This is the self-production and self-sales model. Does anyone have any further questions?

Seeing that no one spoke, Li Zhe picked up the chalk and wrote: "The second planting method is cooperative planting. Our partners are the growers who join the vegetable cooperative. I will focus on introducing the specific cooperation methods."

Subsequently, Li Zhe explained in detail the cooperation model in which the vegetable company provided technology, growers provided funds and land, the credit union provided loans, and the Beijing Vegetable Company was responsible for purchasing the vegetables.

Previously, Wang Tietou had heard Li Zhe say that he wanted to lead the villagers to grow vegetables in greenhouses, which was why he was willing to help Li Zhe. But talk is cheap, and people are selfish after all; he wasn't sure how far Li Zhe could go.

Now that he heard the specific implementation plan, he felt reassured and was the first to respond, "This plan is great. Not only will we make money, but the villagers will also get rich. I agree."

Li Jiugang rubbed his bulbous nose: "We buy vegetables from the villagers at one price, and sell them to the Beijing Vegetable Company at another. If the villagers find out that we're making a profit in the middle, won't they talk badly about us behind our backs?"

Li Weidong said, "Brother Jiugang, our company still needs to employ technicians. If the second planting model doesn't make money, why should the company's technicians guide them in farming? This world is big, and there are all kinds of people. As long as we have a clear conscience, why should we care about their opinions?"

Li Zhe had already thought of this. How to solve it?

Just ignore him.

As long as you make money, you'll never lack envious people.

Li Zhe is long past the age of living according to other people's opinions.

Lin Xiaohu raised his hand and asked, "Brother Li, I have a question. Our first planting model is self-production and self-sales, which I understand. Growing your own vegetables and selling them yourself will definitely bring in more income."

But for the second model, why sell the winter vegetables to the Beijing Vegetable Company? I think we can get a higher price if we sell them ourselves.”

Li Zhe said, "Xiao Hu's question is very good. At first, I also thought about buying and selling the vegetables myself. But there is a very practical problem here, which is that we will encounter some difficulties in the process of buying and selling the vegetables."

Li Zhe turned around and made a note on the blackboard: "For example, after the vegetables are grown, some growers want to sell them at a higher price and don't want to sell to us anymore. What if they want to break the contract? At this time, we need a strong department to support us."

A couple of years ago, everyone should remember when the supply and marketing cooperatives were issuing IOUs for cabbages. Now, the Beijing Vegetable Company has all the legal permits and has paid in cash; who would dare to renege on their debt?

The Beijing Municipal Vegetable Company has a somewhat special nature; its purpose is to ensure the supply of vegetables to Beijing.

Despite its low company level, it wields considerable influence.

To give a simple example, if the Beijing Municipal Vegetable Company fails to meet its vegetable procurement targets and Beijing experiences another vegetable shortage, that would be a major problem, and no one could bear that responsibility.

To put it simply, even if the local government has to go without vegetables themselves and sell everything they own, they still have to fill in this order.

As long as the local government gets involved, there's no need to worry about not being able to harvest the vegetables.
This is the source of Li Zhe's confidence in cooperating with farmers.

(End of this chapter)