1968: Started from breeding

Chapter 273 This thoughtfulness is something he couldn't have achieved when he was younger! (Silver Alliance, 6th update)
Lu Anguo knew very well that compared to setting up a branch farm in a place thousands of miles away where not a single hair grows, those farms would definitely prefer to lose one piece of farm machinery.

For them, losing one piece of farm machinery doesn't really have much of an impact; at most, it will just slow down the harvest by a day or two.

Besides, it's just that the agricultural machinery allocated to them has been postponed; it's not that they're not getting it anymore.

But opening a branch site would require a much larger investment than that.

Therefore, Lu Anguo added directly.

"Then, leader, I will go back and arrange and coordinate the orders, and try to deliver the agricultural machinery to Lanshui Farm after the New Year."

After the old man saw that his subordinate understood what he meant, he immediately nodded.

"Also, you should coordinate with the Ministry's Engineering Bureau and ask them to send two small excavators over as well."

“For this kind of saline-alkali land, reclamation is a minor issue; the main problem lies in building irrigation canals.”

Upon hearing this, Lu Anguo glanced at Su Wenchen and thought to himself that Blue Water Farm was now a highly coveted prize in the eyes of the leaders.

After all, the Ministry's Engineering Bureau has always been a key unit of the Ministry.

Because the procurement of various industrial equipment required the leaders to personally negotiate with the Ministry of Machine Building.

This is the first time that such industrial equipment has been allocated to a farm!

Su Wenchen was taken aback when he heard this. He hadn't expected that the leader would allocate four extra large agricultural machines and two excavators this time.

This is a huge help to their branch, because digging the same ditch with an excavator would probably take a person an hour to do.

So after hearing this, Su Wenchen didn't modestly say that they didn't need it.

Because he knows that when a leader allocates resources to you first, they don't want to see how humble you are; they want to see you produce tangible results.

Seeing this, Su Wenchen spoke directly.

"Rest assured, leader, our Blue Water Farm will definitely live up to the support of the ministry and will report back to the ministry with tangible results."

The old man nodded with satisfaction.

"Not bad. I would have been quite disappointed if you had said something like 'no.' You're young and full of energy."

"Work hard, and I look forward to you turning the saline-alkali Yellow River floodplain into a fertile livestock center."

"Let's go! Let's take one last look at your chicken farm."

"I heard that you started by raising chickens."

Seeing this, Su Wenchen smiled and pushed open the door for the old man.

"Don't worry, leader. Once our branch site is completed, we hope you can come and give us some guidance."

The old man shook his head.

"If you can really transform tens of millions of acres of saline-alkali land into fertile and potentially fertile pastoral centers."

"It's not just me who has to go; I'm afraid even the leaders in the institute will have to go and take a look."

After all, the tens of millions of acres of saline-alkali land in the Yellow River flood plain have always been a burden on the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain.

Let's just ignore it!
It's such a waste to have so much land in the plains!

But let's manage it!
Leaving aside the manpower and resources spent, the main problem is that the grain production is much lower than that of other lands.

Given the large tracts of land in the Great Northern Wilderness that are yet to be reclaimed, investing a lot of manpower and resources in its management is actually a very uneconomical thing to do.

This is why, even though he was optimistic about Blue Water Farm, he still didn't allocate a large number of mechanical equipment over.

Unlike the Great Northern Wilderness, where the black soil can be cultivated and then harvested into abundant grain the following year.

Even if saline-alkali land is properly treated, crops will still be able to grow, but yields will be reduced, with a normal yield of only 100 jin per mu.

Moreover, the institute has already set the tone, and the current focus remains on supporting the reclamation of the Great Northern Wilderness, with a large number of educated youth also primarily supporting that area.

The main approach here is to explore demonstration sites on a farm-by-farm basis, combined with local departments' own governance.

There's no way around it; the government has to settle accounts eventually.

Although Su Wenchen didn't know these things, he could tell that the old man didn't have much hope for the branch.

He didn't say much, because saying too much before achieving results would be useless.

So Su Wenchen said directly.

"Alright, we'll wait until our sub-sites produce results before welcoming the leaders' inspection."

"Now I'll take you to the chicken farm!"

"You know what, our Blue Water Rooster is quite famous in our area now!"

A group of people walked all the way to the chicken coop area, but had not yet entered the chicken coop.

You can hear continuous "clucking!" and similar sounds.

The old man pointed to a small open space in the distance that was fenced off with barbed wire.

"Don't you all use cages for raising chickens? Why are there still some being raised outdoors over there!"

Su Wenchen said directly.

"That's the only rooster breeding site. We've tried this kind of meat-producing rooster, but the meat from free-range roosters that roam around often is still the best."

"Although they grow a bit slower, the meat quality is much better than that of cage-raised animals, but the price is also much higher. Currently, other units are purchasing from our farm at two yuan per kilogram."

"However, we don't raise many chickens on our farm, because we currently only have about 600 in total. We mainly use the limited amount of grain to feed laying hens."

The old man asked curiously upon hearing this.

"You sell them at such high prices? Do any organizations come to purchase them?"

Su Wenchen scratched his head.

To be honest, it's not that some organizations come to buy this stuff, but rather that most organizations simply can't get their hands on it.

Although the price is twice that of a regular rooster, this kind of rooster is now highly favored by various guesthouses in the city and county, as well as factories for entertaining guests.

So after a moment's hesitation, Su Wenchen spoke directly.

"Boss, there's still a market for these roosters. If grain production weren't so low right now, we would have expanded our breeding scale long ago!"

After all, social classes have always existed. Even though everyone is poor now, there are still some people with high salaries.

Families like Su Wenchen's, where both parents work, can save a considerable amount of money each month.

Because housing, medical care, and education are all provided by the employer at this time, you only need to pay for your own meals, and the employer usually provides a subsidy.

Aside from buying clothes and large items, families like theirs have almost no other place to spend money.

The old man clearly understood what Su Wenchen meant.

However, I still gave them instructions.

“Your farm is doing the right thing. At this stage, we should still focus on egg-laying chicken farming. After all, for ordinary working families, chicken meat that costs two yuan per kilogram is unaffordable.”

Once inside the chicken coop, things become much busier.

The employees, dressed in navy blue overalls and wearing masks, moved between the chicken coops.

Some people were pushing buckets to refill water, while others were pushing egg baskets to collect eggs from under the cages.

Some employees were taking out the manure trays that were covered in chicken droppings and replacing them with clean ones.

The researchers from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences who followed them in also looked curiously at the chicken coop.

Clearly, in their eyes, the pigsty wasn't much different from theirs. Although the rabbit shed was well-built, they didn't notice much difference because there weren't many people there.

But here in the chicken coop, these researchers truly felt a sense of scale. A long row of chicken cages, combined with the lights overhead, was a truly impressive sight.

In addition, the busy crowd here gives people a very orderly feeling despite the busyness.

The old man sighed.

"Your farm is even more spectacular than Beijing's Red Star Chicken Farm!"

“I’ve been there twice to inspect the work. They don’t raise many more chickens than you do, but it always gives me a very chaotic feeling.”

"Overall, it's not as orderly as your place!"

"You've managed to grow to this scale little by little on your own; all the farms below should learn from you!"

After saying that, he walked to a pillar next to a chicken coop and took down a notebook.

Looking at the daily feeding and egg production records for this quarter, I can see the details.

"Xiao Su, I didn't expect that the ratio of eggs to toppings in your field is almost two to one."

Su Wenchen nodded directly.

"Our chickens are all specially bred egg-laying chickens, and their eggs are significantly larger than those of ordinary local chickens."

"However, although this farming method has a high egg production rate and produces a lot of eggs, the culling rate of hens is also fast. Basically, a batch of hens will enter a period of fatigue after a little over a year due to laying too many eggs."

“Normal free-range chickens can lay eggs for more than two years.”

"Finally, I feel that these eggs don't taste as good as the smaller ones!"

"Of course, the difference is not actually that obvious."

The old man shook his head.

"That's a great deal! After all, some of your eggs weigh 70 grams, which is almost twice the size of a normal chicken egg."

"I think it's not just pigs, but also chickens have a lot of potential for promotion!"

"If I hadn't come and seen this, I would never have known that you had such a treasure hidden in your chicken coop!"

"Why haven't you told the ministry yet?!"

Su Wenchen immediately smiled and said.

“Boss, look at what you’re saying. What’s there to be reluctant about? Besides, our farm is already very mature in this kind of egg-laying hen farming.”

"Promoting this thing is not difficult at all."

Upon seeing this, the old man spoke directly to the cadre from the animal husbandry institute who had come with him.

"After you go back, all of you from the Animal Husbandry Bureau should go back and inform those large state-owned chicken farms."

“Send people here to learn about the specifics of how to introduce it. We’ll let them discuss it with Blue Water Farm themselves.”

"Let's go! Your company has a secure phone number, right? I'll call my superiors; they're probably all waiting for a reply right now!"

Upon hearing this, Su Wenchen immediately nodded.

"Sir, the secure phone number is in my office. It was installed by the General Office of the Ministry as soon as it was transferred to the ministry! I'll show you the way!"

Upon arriving at the office area, after the elderly man went inside, the security team members who had come with him immediately closed the door.

Then he gestured for everyone else not to get too close.

Seeing that Su Wenchen had finally freed up some time, Miao Yuan immediately ran over, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and asked.

"Director, how should we arrange the lunch? What standard should we follow?"

After all, when entertaining higher-level departments, or even their own system's top leaders, Miao Yuan didn't know what standard to use for the reception.

Before Su Wenchen could finish speaking, Lu Anguo walked over.

"Xiao Su, don't do anything that you know you're doing wrong on purpose!"

"This year, a document from above clearly prohibits the use of public funds for meals and requires that when going down to the grassroots, one must eat in the canteen and pay for it oneself with receipts!"

"Just continue with your normal cafeteria meal service."

Upon hearing this, Su Wenchen turned to Miao Yuan and spoke directly.

"Okay, then we'll continue with the original menu. That's what we've been serving for lunch today."

Miao Yuan replied directly.

"Originally, there was a meat dish of stir-fried pork liver, a vegetable dish of stewed cabbage with vermicelli, and a limited supply of stir-fried eggs with scallions."

Lu Anguo was quite surprised when he heard this.

"Xiao Su, does your cafeteria actually serve two meat dishes every day?"

To be honest, it wasn't surprising to Lu Anguo that a farm like this would usually provide a meat dish every day.

Because the state-run farms under their jurisdiction, including the canteens of their ministries, only offer one meat dish per day, and of course, if you go too late, it's usually all gone.

But he hadn't expected that they would serve two meat dishes here.

Upon hearing this, Su Wenchen immediately shook his head and explained.

"Director, normally our canteen also serves one meat dish and one vegetable dish for employees to choose from."

The scrambled eggs with scallions are usually only added on a case-by-case basis, because the cafeteria only adds scrambled eggs when there's a loss of eggs during the egg storage process.

"The exact supply depends entirely on how many eggs are lost each day."

Lu Anguo blinked and said directly.

"Then your egg consumption rate will be very high."

He knew from a moment's thought that this would definitely result in some delicious food, or that some employees who wanted to take advantage would deliberately break the eggs.

He had seen this kind of thing many times, and he had also heard of some dyeing factory workers deliberately ruining some fabrics in order to increase the number of defective fabrics in the factory.

Su Wenchen smiled and shook his head.

“The egg-collecting staff at our unit’s egg warehouse are definitely subject to loss standards. If the loss is very low and meets certain standards, they receive a low-loss subsidy every year.”

"So for them, even if they deliberately destroy the eggs, they may not be able to eat them. On the contrary, if they work carefully, they can reliably get their annual subsidies."

"Moreover, our company provides at least one meat dish almost every day, so most employees don't lack food! After all, the cafeteria costs money!"

After speaking with Lu Anguo, Su Wenchen turned to Miao Yuandao in a low voice.

"Go and make the arrangements!"

"However, we'll change the stir-fried pork liver for lunch to braised pork with potatoes. Tell the cafeteria to add more meat, but not all meat."

"Oh, and please tell them to stew it until it's very soft!"

Although Su Wenchen deliberately lowered his voice, Lu Anguo heard most of it.

He secretly admired him, no wonder this kid had hardly offended anyone along the way! He could get along well with anyone.

Add meat only to one meat dish to avoid violating the rules.

Even if a leader has poor teeth, very few people know this, because information about a leader's health is kept secret from the public.

Su Wenchen only arrived at the ministry yesterday, and he was able to notice the difference after just one meal they had together in Tianjin last night, which shows how meticulous he is.

This level of thoughtfulness was something he never possessed when he was so young.

(End of this chapter)