Traveling through 70's wine

Ji Mingan found the heads of the four farms that had signed contracts with Changxia Grain Company and talked about the necessity of executing the contract according to law, emphasizing honesty. After Ji Mingan finished talking, the four heads remained silent. Ji Mingan called out their names and asked, "Old Huang, tell me why you didn't sell grain to them?"

The middle-aged man named Lao Huang, who is the deputy director of Farm 11, said, "Director Ji, it's not that I don't want to sell grain to them. It's mainly because our seeds are bought by others. If we don't sell grain to them, we have to pay 50% more for the seeds, plus the fertilizer and pesticides, and we will lose money."

The other three people also echoed, and Ji Mingan said: "So you would rather break the contract than sell the grain?"

A few people didn't say anything, so Ji Mingan threatened: "In this case, you can only pay the penalty according to the contract."

Su Qing stood up and said, "Dear managers, it's not that we have to ask everyone to pay for breach of contract, but if we don't follow the contract, anyone can breach the contract, so there is no need to sign this contract.

This year, grain prices are high and you have breached the contract. If grain prices fall in a certain year and the purchaser breaches the contract, what will you do?"

A farm manager named Ma said, "Director Ji, you know it's not easy for us farmers to work hard for a year. If we pay the penalty, what will our farm workers eat?"

When Li Zhonghua and Tao Yong determined the penalty for breach of contract, they set it at 5% of the total purchase price. The total purchase price of one of their contracts was approximately 50 yuan, and 5% was 2.5 yuan. Although it was not unaffordable, who would be willing to pay it?

The other three people also remained silent, obviously unwilling to give it.

Su Qing said: "Leaders, I have a plan. If you give us half of the food agreed in the contract, we will not ask you for liquidated damages even if we execute the contract. What do you think?"

The four of them tilted their heads to discuss, and Lao Ma said, "Boss Su, we need to increase the purchase price by 2 cents per kilogram. The main reason is that the cost of seeds is relatively high. In fact, even if we increase it by 2 cents, we will still lose money."

Ji Mingan looked at Li Zhonghua and nodded. Li Zhonghua said, "For the sake of our long-term cooperation and Director Ji's face, let's increase the price. In this way, we will immediately send a car to the farm to pick up the grain and settle the bill on the spot."

Su Qing came down and found out that the company competing with them for food was the Eagle Company, a joint venture between the United States and the Mountain Eagle Country. This company had entered China not long ago and its headquarters in China was located in the Northeast. On the one hand, it provided grain seeds to farms, and on the other hand, it also sold pesticides, fertilizers, and agricultural machinery to farms.

At the beginning, the farm only bought a part of the grain seeds, so the impact on Changxia Grain Company was not very large. Now most of the grain seeds on the farm have to be purchased from Xiongying Company, so it has to reduce the supply to Changxia Grain Company.

The next day, Su Qing went to the 11th Farm with the grain purchasing convoy. The farm had already used harvesters from the United States. They went to the farm's warehouse, weighed their portions, and loaded them onto the trucks.

Su Qing asked casually, "You have so much food in your warehouse, will it get damp if stored for a long time?"

The farm worker in charge of loading and unloading replied, "We still have to harvest the grain in the next few days. After the grain is harvested and dried, the people from the Eagle Company will come to take the grain away in a few days, so we can't keep it for long."

Su Qing asked again: "How much can you increase production by using grain seeds from foreign companies?"

"At least 10% to 15% increase in production."

That is to say, the yield per mu of land will increase by about 80 to 120 kilograms. For a farm with 1000 mu of land, the yield can increase by more than 8 kilograms, which is not a small number.

I heard the man say, "Even if we have to buy seeds from them every year and use the seeds we save, the yield will decrease the next year."

Su Qing nodded. This was the trick used by the grain companies to force the farms to buy seeds from them. She followed the convoy back to the branch.

The situation of the four farms was similar. The Northeast Branch failed to complete the purchase volume. Zhou Yu was very upset. Su Qing asked him to find out which farms did not use the seeds of the Eagle Company? In particular, did the Wuchang area use seeds from foreign companies?

Zhou Yu hurried to investigate. Su Qing went to the farm to buy grain during the day, and went to the free market to check the grain prices.

Farms in Northeast China have also implemented the household contract responsibility system. Generally, the area of ​​a family farm is not large, only about 100 acres. From the types of grain on the market, Su Qing can judge which are foreign grains and which are Chinese grains. She found that most family farms still use Chinese grains. Although they also use agricultural machinery, their farming methods are still relatively old-fashioned. Moreover, Chinese grain varieties have slightly smaller grains than foreign grains, and the pure grain obtained after peeling and removing the bran is slightly less, so the price is actually a little cheaper.

Su Qing negotiated the price and bought all the grain. Although the price was a few cents higher than the national unified purchase price, the purchase cost did not increase much. This barely solved the raw material problem of the processing plant.

After returning to the branch, Zhou Yu reported that the main farms cooperating with Xiongying Company are currently several large farms, and the varieties of cooperation are staple foods such as rice, corn, soybeans, and wheat. Rapeseed, sorghum, and peanuts are still grown with seeds kept by themselves.

60% of the large farms in Jiamusi have purchased seeds from the Eagle Company. Farms in other places use them less frequently. Their own farms in Wuchang still use their own seeds.

Su Qing said to Li Zhonghua: "Looking at the Eagle Company, they may expand their seed sales next year, and it will be even more difficult to purchase grain by then."

"What can we do? They can't buy all the food?"

Of course that’s impossible, so Su Qing’s suggestion is to follow the practice of the Eagle Company and promote their own grain seeds.

They have been cooperating with Pingjing Agricultural University for two years. Based on the seeds selected by Su Qing in the space, they have now introduced excellent varieties of rice, corn and wheat. If the field is managed properly, the yield per mu can reach more than 1000 kilograms, and the plants are strong and have a strong ability to resist diseases and pests.

However, Changxia Grain Company has always been engaged in the buying and selling of grain, and it is still unknown whether the seeds it launches will be accepted by the market.

The climate in Northeast China is cold, and farmers gradually begin to hibernate after the autumn harvest. Now it is September, and Su Qing asked Li Zhonghua to contact the Academy of Agricultural Sciences and send a few people over to publicize their research results and prepare for signing the purchase contract early next year.

When Zhou Yu heard that his company also had improved seeds, he became more confident and said, "Boss Su, Boss Li, I wonder if our seed production can catch up with that of Xiongying Company? Well, even if it can't, as long as the difference is not too big, we won't have trouble selling it."

He explained that since the Eagle Company has a monopoly on high-quality seeds, farms have to buy their expensive pesticides and fertilizers, snatching customers from the state-owned agricultural supply stations, and now the agricultural supply companies are not happy either. If they have high-quality seeds, and with the cooperation of the agricultural supply companies, farmers can go to the state-owned agricultural supply stations to buy fertilizers and pesticides, and the cost will be lower than that of the Eagle Company, so farmers will definitely be willing to do so.