A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 491 Summer Harvest of Ten Thousand Grains

The requisition of grain is always a big problem. From the farmer's perspective, he works hard to sow seeds, weed and fertilize the wheat, and watch them sprout, grow ears, and become full and golden day by day.

Finally, after much hard work, the wheat was cut down, and the stalks and fruits were separated.

This also means that food will be separated from the farmers. The landowners, the farmers' creditors, and their henchmen will emerge from the big houses and castles, taking the lion's share and leaving the farmers with a pitiful surplus of food and the unpleasant feeling of being half-starved.

Fortunately, the style of the newly reclaimed land is quite different. At least from sowing to harvesting, there are mechanical structures that look scary but work very quickly to help. In particular, there is the combine harvester, which is a huge steel spider with a rolling sickle. After harvesting, the harvester is immediately collected by the conveyor belt into the stalk remover on its back, and then pulled from the "spider's butt" to the little dump truck behind it.

Of course, the harvest couldn't be handed over directly to the farmers. Instead, the Zweilinger agricultural and commercial company would record the rough yield on the spot and then haul it to the steam-powered mill.

For the pain of losing food, there is a soothing "pain relief patch" called a land deed.

"Is this really mine?" The farmers from Valois, now farmers who had just cleared land, held the thick piece of paper in their hands, filled with disbelief as they received the land deed.

"Let's double-check, Chom. Lots 337-339 in the South Kempson area, totaling fifteen acres for the entire household."

"Yes, yes, fifteen mu, not a penny less." The farmer felt relieved. He couldn't believe that he had acquired land in a foreign land in just six months.

No, in Valois, he was just a tenant farmer. When the noble lord was in power, he cultivated the land for him, paying whatever he grew, and the lord would give him a little to keep his family from starving. Then some commissioner drove the noble lord away and brought a musket and a guillotine to force him to continue paying surplus grain.

Then the imperialists came again, and the commissioner was so scared that he ran back to the city. Jom gritted his teeth and made the most important decision of his life: to take his family and run away, as far away as possible.

Although he almost died on the way, at least now he has achieved his goal and accomplished something he never dared to dream of when he lived in a thatched hut.

He couldn't even read all the characters for "fifteen mu," but he clutched the land deed tightly and turned to leave, shouting, "Hey! Fifteen mu!" He had an urge to shout all the way from the mill to his new home, "I have land!"

"Hey, wait a minute, don't rush off." The staff member quickly called out to the overly excited man: "This is the leftover grain from your household, it's all yours. You can take it with your ticket, or you can sell some at the next window for cash."

Chom represents the general situation of immigrants in Kempson. Originally, a single laborer could manage a maximum of five acres, with the help of machinery and without the need for them to be responsible for irrigation. This year, two laborers working together can manage thirty to forty acres. When he first arrived and there was no harvest, he still had extra energy to do odd jobs to make a living.

He, his wife, and one child each, with the added benefit of fertilizer, could support their food supply for a year from the harvest of three acres. The taxes from the special economic zone, the wages for redeeming the land and the structure, and the seeds and fertilizers together accounted for nearly 70% of their income.

The proportion was high, but for their family, they would rather hand over 70% of their 15 mu of land than become tenant farmers for the master, working themselves to the bone for a year to manage those 5 or 6 mu of land, only to have half of it taken away and then living a life of semi-starvation.

And the land was his own again! Hey! Thinking of this, Chom realized that he could continue to do odd jobs during the off-season. In other words, he took some money from his share of the land and exchanged it for cash. He bought a headscarf for his wife, a can of expensive fruit for his child, and finally, carefully wrapped up the last bit of money and put it in his inner pocket. He then got on the cart, loaded it with coarse flour, and hummed a song as he went home.

On the bumpy road, the wheat flour stuck to the mill in the sacks rose up and turned into dust in the sunlight. Jom really wanted to take a deep breath, as if he could taste its sweetness.

Like Jom, the new farmers who had a normal and smooth harvest were overjoyed to receive their land and surplus grain, but some were not so lucky.

Luo Xia sat on the structure, listening to the agricultural and commercial company employees' report as he walked along the field ridge. Preliminary statistics showed that about 30% of the new immigrants were unable to make ends meet due to various reasons, and thus could not meet the production requirements for redeeming their land.

Some of them suffered from improper fertilization, some were unlucky and didn't get good land, or some experienced sudden health problems that prevented them from farming.

And two types of people who abandon their land:

One type is those who discover that working is more profitable than farming, so they tidy up the land and carry buckets into the factory!

Others are original city residents or even long-time residents of Kempson City. They feel that the special zone's policy is just giving away land, speculating on acquiring land without actually cultivating it.

Originally, the speculators planned to hire people to farm for them, but since the Special Administrative Region did not impose any identity restrictions on the adoption of newly reclaimed land, the farmers who understood the policy all contracted land and farmed it themselves, leaving the "small bosses" dumbfounded and unable to find professional help.

"How should we deal with the above situation?" The data from the agricultural and commercial company showed that grain production had increased unprecedentedly that year, but at the same time, "Zwillinger" itself suffered huge losses because in fact, the construction of water conservancy projects, the rental and sale of agricultural machinery, and the sale of seeds and fertilizers were either not charged or were sold at "extremely low prices".

The special economic zones were terrified by the economic calculations, feeling that this wasn't about developing the land, but about creating a financial hole. It was Rorschach who insisted on subsidizing agriculture with magical industry: "You only know how to calculate money, money, money, money! Don't you see how many non-agricultural people we have now? If no one farms, what will we eat?"

"Now factories often have tens of thousands of people concentrated in one place. Besides our own subsidies to keep farmers from continuing to grow crops, who else can support us? If we rely solely on imports, we'll only suffer small losses eventually turning into huge ones!"

Luo Xia's attitude remains unchanged: the land cannot be left uncultivated; it must continue to be cultivated. Waste is not allowed: "For those who do not meet the standards, we must consider the circumstances. If it is not their own fault, they can be allowed to apply for a one-season extension to get their own food rations back. After the winter wheat is planted this year, they can still get the land back after paying off their debts next year. We must make it clear to them."

"Speculators should back down. If they have their own income, they should take back the land. The cost of the grain should be deducted from the cost of the machinery, fertilizer and seeds. If that's not enough, they should be asked to pay back the land."

"All the abandoned and reclaimed land parcels should ideally be consolidated through land swaps. We can exchange good land for land in poor condition held by farmers," Luo Xia recalled the current scope of work of the cooperative agricultural machinery and gave an estimate:

"It would be best to organize them into collective farms of about 500 households each, and employ and train those farmers who haven't received land. Each farm member would receive 40% of the shares, which they are not allowed to resell. Of the remaining 60%, half would be purchased by the agricultural cooperative or steel mill, and the other half would be put on the market. Don't city dwellers have spare money and like to invest? Let them help the agricultural cooperative recoup some of its losses."

"To ensure the success of collective farming, we need to plan irrigation systems well, prioritize the supply of fertilizers, and apply to the special economic zone for machinery when manpower is insufficient. Most importantly, we must provide adequate training for those who operate the machinery. We should compete with smallholder farmers and set an example. The new round of land reclamation will also be carried out through a combination of collective farming and adoption models."

"We should also provide more support to cooperatives. In short, whether it is industry or agriculture, the more united they are in production, the more there is division of labor and cooperation, the more we should support them."

As for the small farmers who have now acquired land, they either need to accumulate wealth step by step, gradually becoming rich from small to medium-sized, or they need to lose their land due to natural disasters, man-made calamities, or market fluctuations.

Rorschach chose to resolutely suppress the first scenario, while avoiding the second scenario that would turn them from small farmers into tenant farmers. Instead, he opted for cooperatives and collective farms to provide a safety net, allowing them to become agricultural workers or be guided into factories.

(End of this chapter)