I am farming in the real world.

Chapter 32: Low grain prices hurt farmers, high rice prices hurt people

Wencheng County is located in the mountainous area southwest of Wenzhou City and is not well-known nationwide.

The name may sound familiar, but in fact this place has nothing to do with the famous Princess Wencheng in history. Instead, it is the hometown of Liu Ji (Liu Bowen), a founding father of the Ming Dynasty.

Due to its mountainous environment, Wencheng has a forest coverage rate of over 72% and its air quality is better than the national first-level standard.

The water quality of the Feiyun River that passes through here is also surprisingly high, ranking first among the eight major water systems in ZJ Province. It is the source of drinking water for millions of people in the main urban area of ​​​​Wenzhou.

The beautiful mountains, water and air have also made this place famous as a longevity town.

Take Chen Jue's grandfather for example, he is 103 years old this year and still alive. In addition to his excellent genes, the rest is mostly due to the natural environment of Wencheng Mountain.

"Long time no see."

"After the road was built, it became much more convenient to drive into the mountains." Chen Jue leaned against the window of the truck, looking at the natural scenery along the way with an appreciative expression.

The hills and mountains are not too high, and all you see is lush and green.

The emerald green river water separated on one side of the highway looks as lush and green as if it were carved from jade.

Coming to such a naturally beautiful place, even the air temperature is several degrees lower than in cities full of heat island effects.

You don't need to turn on the air conditioner in the car. Just roll down the window and you can feel the moist, comfortable and fresh air blowing along the way.

When his parents were alive, Chen Jue often came to Wencheng to play with his grandfather and uncles.

It's just that I went bankrupt in the past two years and have been hiding in my old house in Chencun for a long time. I almost forgot that there are such beautiful natural scenery to appreciate in this world.

"It's nice to come here to escape the summer heat and retire." Chen Jue sighed in his heart.

……

The truck passed through the newly built asphalt mountain road and finally came to a place called Pingtou Village.

After getting off the bus, Chen Jue met his grandfather Li Jisheng, who was watching the morning news on TV with a few elderly people in a store next to the small bridge at the entrance of the village.

Li Jisheng had a head full of silver hair and was leaning on a cane. When he saw Chen Jue, his grandson whom he hadn't seen for a long time, he immediately smiled and said, "Xiao Jue! Why are you here?"

"Grandpa, I'm here to see you."

Chen Jue, carrying two large bags of gifts, pulled a wooden bench and sat down next to his grandfather, chatting enthusiastically with him. He also let him taste the MC bayberry that was not available locally.

“This bayberry is huge!”

"It's delicious, delicious, better than the bayberries grown in high-rise buildings." Li Jisheng was very happy to see his grandson coming to show his filial piety.

He was born into a family of She ethnic group landlords and was an educated person before the founding of the People's Republic of China. Later, he gave up writing and joined the army to kill Japanese soldiers on the battlefield. He also once wandered on the 38th parallel.

After retiring from the army, he returned to the county and became a teacher. He worked there until his retirement and then returned to Pingtou Village to retire.

Having lived to such an old age and receiving a pension every month, it stands to reason that he has seen and eaten everything. However, after tasting the flavor of MC bayberry, Li Jisheng could not help but exclaim in praise.

"Grandpa, if you like it, eat more. I brought a lot." Chen Jue was very happy to see that his grandfather looked very good.

As the saying goes, having an elder in the family is like having a treasure.

After his parents and elders passed away one after another, Chen Jue's only direct blood relative left in the world was his grandfather. Holding the old man's hand, he felt an extraordinarily warm and kind feeling in his heart.

……

I sat and chatted with my grandfather for a while, and sighed for my parents who had passed away.

Chen Jue brought Tie Yi and supported the staggering Li Jisheng back to a terraced house halfway up the mountain in Pingtou Village.

This is the newly built retirement home for several of my uncles after they retired. Next to it is an old Li family house with a wooden tile structure.

Although Li Jisheng used to be a teacher, he retired too early and was not very good at educating his children.

Except for Chen Jue's mother who was admitted to high school, the rest of his uncles and aunts only graduated from elementary school or junior high school.

In addition, the economy had not yet developed during the era they experienced, and Wencheng was a poor mountainous area. After adulthood, each family made a living by growing vegetables and raising rabbits.

Chen Jue remembered that when he was a child, he came from Rui County and often went to the rabbit house next to the Li family's old house to catch rabbits and play with them. Every time before going back, he would throw a tantrum and demand to take the largest gray rabbit back.

It was not until I grew up and became sensible that I realized that the gray rabbit was a breeding rabbit, used to give birth to kittens.

"Xiao Jue, why are you here?"

As he was reminiscing, Chen Jue's uncle Li Mian, dressed like a vegetable farmer, came back from the vegetable field on the back hill with a basket on his back.

"Uncle, I'm here to discuss something with you!" Seeing this, Chen Jue immediately came over.

He first let Tie put down the gift he was holding, and then took Li Mian to tell him the purpose of his trip, which was to contract a vegetable field.

"Cabbage field?"

"You want to start a vegetable business?" Li Mian was surprised.

In recent years, I often hear my children mention that my nephew Chen Jue is not doing well these days. There are even reports that he failed to run a factory, went bankrupt and was burdened with huge debts.

But unfortunately, her mother's family is not wealthy. Her uncles are all retired vegetable farmers. They don't have much money. It is already very difficult for them to live a good life. They can only watch their nephew become depressed.

I never expected that after not seeing him for a while, Chen Jue would make a comeback!

He hired people and bought trucks. It was obvious that he had made a lot of money and was very successful. "Uncle, I want you to help me take the lead and let me take over all the vegetables grown by the nearby villages."

"The price I offer will be 1 cent higher than the market price at the origin." Chen Jue said straight to the point.

The so-called origin price is the first-hand price after the vegetables are picked from the ground.

Compared with the wholesale price in the vegetable basket, it reduces the losses incurred during transportation, fuel costs, and store labor costs.

Take Shanghai Qing as an example. The normal wholesale price is around 1 yuan, but the price at the place of origin is only a few cents per pound.

The two prices seem very different.

However, no matter how the wholesale market outside fluctuates, the price at the origin will not be affected most of the time. Even if there is a fluctuation, the increase or decrease will be controlled within a few cents.

The old saying "cheap grain prices hurt farmers, expensive rice prices hurt people" still exists today, but with the relevant departments regulating behind the scenes, the stable income of vegetable farmers can be guaranteed to a certain extent.

"1 cents higher than the price at the place of origin?"

"It's so much higher, how do you make money?" Li Mian was also a little surprised when he heard it.

Seeing that his uncle was interested, Chen Jue started to fool him by using the so-called "connecting upstream and downstream" theory on the Internet.

What about skipping middlemen and supplying directly to large supermarkets and retail markets.

He even gave examples of successful Internet vegetable-selling companies like Dingdong Maicai, which confused Li Mian.

Of course, these verbal promises are just for listening.

The most important thing is that Chen Jue directly took out a few bundles of red bills from his bag and placed them on the table: "Don't worry, uncle! I am not renting the vegetable field on a whim, I plan to rent it for a long time. I can leave some deposit for the vegetable farmers in the village first."

With this so-called cash guarantee, the subsequent development began to become unusually smooth.

Seeing that Chen Jue had already taken out the cash, Li Mian did not hesitate and took out his phone to call the remaining uncles who grew vegetables over.

Several people gathered under the eaves of the Li's old house, eating MC Yangmei while listening to Chen Jue's nonsense.

After some discussion, they finally felt that Chen Jue's offer was high and they could make more money than selling it to those vegetable vendors who came to run their business, so they readily agreed to Chen Jue's proposal.

Of course, it is very easy to take over the vegetable fields planted by a few uncles. You can get it done with just a word based on kinship, but it is a bit difficult to expand to several nearby villages.

Fortunately, my uncle Li Mian knew the cadres of the Pingtou Village Economic Cooperative, and Li Jisheng had some prestige in the neighborhood. After a few phone calls, he spread the news among the vegetable farmers in the village.

By the time the early morning farming time was almost over, a large group of vegetable farmers had heard the news and came to the Li family's old house either on motorcycles or on three-wheelers.

Finally, under the leadership of a cadre named Li Fumin from the economic cooperative, the vegetable farmers present signed a simple "Shanghai Qing Sales Cooperation Agreement" with Chen Jue by pressing their fingerprints.

From then on, no matter how much Shanghai green the villagers grew, as long as the quality was not too bad, it would be sold exclusively by Chen Jue's family.

As for why there is only the Shanghai green category and not other vegetable agricultural products.

This is also because some people in several nearby villages have already started the business of vegetable vendors. However, their destinations are not the vegetable basket of Wencheng, but Cangnan and other places closer to Wencheng.

If Chen Jue completely blocked the road for harvesting vegetables, then these local vegetable vendors would be left with nothing.

So after meeting and discussing it, they finally decided to let Chen Jue only underwrite the Shanghai Qing category.

But don’t underestimate the power of a single product!

Take the sale of single products on Taobao as an example. No matter whether it is women's clothing, electronic products or daily necessities, any e-commerce seller who becomes a leader in selling a single product has an annual turnover of hundreds of millions or even billions.

Although the Shanghai Qing thing looks insignificant, when it comes to the actual volume, I guess only God knows where its upper limit is.

……

After finalizing the Shanghai Qing sales agreements with several villages, Chen Jue took out 60,000 yuan in cash as a bonus and deposited it in the economic cooperative of Pingtou Village as a deposit.

If he breaches the contract in the future, the deposit will be automatically deducted and distributed to the villagers who signed the agreement.

Of course, his act of paying real money to gain the villagers' trust was not without other benefits.

In addition to obtaining the certificate of origin of Shanghai Qing, even the village chief and secretary of Pingtou Village rushed to him after hearing the news to build a relationship with him, and they added each other on WeChat.

After all, Chen Jue came here to help the villagers generate income, so these village cadres must come forward to understand the inside story.

At noon, my grandfather and uncles prepared a simple table of dishes in the Li family's old house, including fried sweet potato noodles, braised pork trotters, white ground warm eggs, etc., which delighted all the guests.

It was not until after 1 p.m. that Manager Zhang from Wanqiang Logistics Park, who had originally agreed to meet in the morning, called to urge him. Only then did Chen Jue say goodbye to his grandfather's family with reluctance.

Before leaving, Grandpa Li Jisheng saw that Chen Jue was alone and tired of struggling for money. So he felt sorry for his grandson and went to the second floor of the old house to get a few yellowed old books and gave them to Chen Jue.

"Xiao Jue, you must pay more attention to safety when you go out and take care of yourself."

"Read these books when you have nothing to do."

"Read more and you will become smarter!" Li Jisheng held Chen Jue's hand and advised earnestly.

"Got it, Grandpa! I'll take a look when I get home."

Chen Jue nodded, accepted the book, and followed Tie Yi onto the truck. He stared at the title printed on the old book and his mouth opened into an O shape: "This book, if you understand and study it thoroughly, you will be absolutely invincible!"

The second update was a bit difficult to code, so it seems there will be no chance of a third update tonight.

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(End of this chapter)