Chapter 051 Industrial Layout (III)
As the Sapiens Company struck hard, eighty agricultural cooperatives were quickly established, and soon more than thirty thousand farmers were involved, and the number is still increasing.
The participation of these farmers has brought 270,000 acres of mountain land, 63,000 acres of paddy fields, 28,000 acres of dry fields, and 5,436 acres of fish ponds to Haitian Agriculture.
Of course, land is just a small matter.
You have to know that the Fernando family and the Lopez family are the real landowners.
Taking Panay Island, the base of the Lopez family, as an example, the area of plantations under its control is very large, reaching 1,736 square kilometers, which is about one-seventh of the area of the entire Panay Island.
The Fernando family's plantation in southern Luzon also covers an area of about 2,245 square kilometers.
The two families control plantations and other agricultural lands across Luzon, covering a total area of 5,571 square kilometers, equivalent to one-fiftieth of Luzon's total area.
Not to mention the small families and farmers affiliated with their families.
Haitian Agriculture would naturally not let go of such a large piece of land.
On Panay Island at this time.
Led by the local head of the Lopez family, Zhang Wei inspected the island with the second largest rice field area in Luzon, where rice and sugarcane are the main crops.
Currently, the total rice production in Luzon is about 17 million tons, and the rice self-sufficiency rate is only 79%.
There are also about 10 million tons of corn.
Based on Luzon's population of 102 million, the total grain output of 27 million tons is equivalent to about 260 kilograms per capita. This per capita output is sufficient to ensure food and clothing.
The problem is that the staple food in Luzon is rice, and some wheat flour is also consumed, while corn is for export.
Luzon produces about 27 million tons of grain annually, exports about 20 million tons of grain, and imports about 8 to 9 million tons of grain.
This is very embarrassing.
Even with the introduction of hybrid rice from China, Luzon still cannot be self-sufficient in food. The core reason is that large landowners and big businessmen are unwilling to increase the area of rice cultivation. They would rather plant corn that the people of Luzon do not eat.
Then these guys worked together with ABCD to import cheap rice and wheat flour, and sold them to city residents at high prices to make huge profits.
As for food security, what does it have to do with big landowners and big businessmen?
On the contrary, they wish there would be a food crisis every day so that they could take the opportunity to drive up prices.
Previously, the Fernando family and the Lopez family were also members of this comprador landlord system.
But now the Homo Sapiens Company has taken over the inheritance of these two families. If it remains the same as before, they will just be America's dogs.
Li Qingye often lamented that he was not cold-blooded and cruel enough, and seemed out of tune with this world.
But why should he take the initiative to adapt to the world?
Why doesn't the world adapt to itself?
As long as you are strong enough, the world will revolve around you.
Haitian Agriculture’s current series of actions are aimed at increasing Luzon’s food self-sufficiency rate and establishing its own system.
The arable land area of Panay Island is very vast, but the area of rice cultivation is smaller than that of sugarcane cultivation, mainly because the profit of sugarcane is high enough.
"Cas, among the land we have on Panay Island, how many are the rice fields and sugarcane fields, besides the plantations on the mountains?" Zhang Wei, wearing a straw hat, looked out at the endless paddy fields in front of him.
Cas Lopez pulled out a document: "82,731 hectares of sugarcane fields and 41,108 hectares of rice fields."
Zhang Wei shook his head: "Too little, too little rice area, cut down 40,000 hectares of sugarcane fields and plant hybrid rice instead."
"Uh..." Cass swallowed and reminded, "General Manager, the rice profit is too low. If we increase the planting area, the market price this year may be even lower, and the company may lose money."
"So what if we make a loss? We can afford it. Besides, do you think sugarcane is a profitable business?" Zhang Wei sneered.
As the general manager of Haitian Agriculture, he knows that with the expansion of Haitian's area and the diversification of genetically modified Eucheuma species, there are now genetically modified Eucheuma species rich in sucrose.
If the sugarcane crop had not been eliminated all at once, which would have caused a violent chain reaction in the market, he would have wanted to convert the remaining 40,000 hectares of sugarcane fields into rice fields.
Now cooperatives and plantations across the country have converted arable land suitable for growing rice to grow a lot of hybrid rice. The rice planting area is planned to reach 300,000 hectares, and it is planned to be planted in two seasons.
It is expected that 2 million tons of rice will be produced this year, and then a portion of rice and corn will be purchased from farmers to stabilize food prices within the control area.
As for whether ABCD will engage in a price war.
Judging from the nature of these guys, there is a high probability that they will deliberately sell products at low prices with the intention of destroying Haitian Agriculture’s rice industry.
But Zhang Wei is not afraid, because Haitian Agriculture can afford the loss. At worst, it can make up for it from other industries. For example, the head office recently assigned the eel industry to Haitian Agriculture.
At this time, the Sapiens company was only responsible for technology research and development, process improvement, and the production of key raw materials.
For example, the eel sex hormones in the eel industry are a link that only the headquarters of the Homo sapiens company controls, and the subsidiaries are not qualified to get involved.
Faced with Zhang Wei's strength, Cass had no choice but to agree.
Zhang Wei did not leave Panay Island immediately because he still needed to take a boat from Panay Island to the Cuyo Islands in the waters west of Panay Island.
The Cuyo Islands are more than 90 kilometers away from Panay Island. Although the land area is not large, the shallow sea area is as high as tens of thousands of square kilometers.
This small archipelago is also the sphere of influence of the Lopez family. Cass brought Zhang Wei and his party to the main island of this archipelago - Cuyo Island.
The professionals who followed were also testing the salinity, water temperature, water depth and coral reef-covered areas of the surrounding waters .
The island's mayor, Mingkai Lopez, introduced the situation of the Cuyo Islands to Zhang Wei.
"Do the hydrological conditions here meet the requirements?" Zhang Wei asked the marine aquaculture expert who followed him.
The other party nodded and said: "It meets the conditions for the cultivation of Eucheuma. As long as we avoid some coral reef areas, we can build floating island-style sea farms here."
The floating island sea fields constructed under the Haitian Agriculture Plan are indeed fixed floating islands built in areas where the sea depth does not exceed 20 meters.
As for how to build it, this will require the use of the coral cement previously prepared for Qingye Group. A part of the specially formulated coral cement can quickly solidify in seawater and is extremely resistant to salt and alkali and seawater corrosion.
Currently, Coral Building Materials has secretly transformed a cement plant into a production base for coral cement, with an annual output of approximately 2.4 million tons of coral cement.
After evaluating the data at hand, the marine aquaculture expert reported to Zhang Wei: "According to my estimate, the area suitable for transformation in the entire Cuyo Islands is about 800 to 1,000 square kilometers."
Zhang Wei thought about it and said, "Then let's set aside an area of sea as an experimental field! The area should be about 50 hectares. Researcher Chen, you will be in charge of this project here."
"no problem."
This project is of an experimental nature. After all, there are still many tidal flats and saline-alkali lands along the coast, so there is no need to advance into the shallow sea all at once.
The shallow sea fields and even the deep sea fields actually have technical reserves that will definitely be used in the future.
In addition to setting up a Haitian experimental project in the Cuyo Islands, Zhang Wei also ordered the construction of a local garbage recycling station and a gas distribution station. This project was not from Haitian Agriculture but was commissioned by Jade Energy.
As a small archipelago with a small population and underdeveloped development, it has a population of only about 27,000 and basic services such as electricity and water supply are basically zero.
However, once large-scale shallow-sea fields can be built in the future, the economy here will surely take off. Hidden Jade Energy and Coral Construction are already preparing to seize the opportunity.
