1994: Vegetable farmers strike back

Chapter 304 Going All In During a Market Downturn
The sharp drop in prices made Yi Dinggan hesitate.

People in this era rarely experienced vegetable market slumps; for a long time, vegetables were in short supply. The term 'market slump' probably hadn't even existed yet.

So he hesitated to plant the seedlings.

This is human nature.

Like most farmers, he grows whatever others are growing.

When vegetables sell well, everyone rushes to plant them, and their enthusiasm for work is incredibly high. But when they don't sell well, they lose all motivation.

That's the current situation.

Yi Dinggan dared not transplant large quantities of Chinese cabbage seedlings anymore. Qi Yongfeng, Huang Rixin and others, who were originally quite enthusiastic, were also afraid that the price of vegetables would continue to drop, or that they would rot in the ground if they could not be sold. The land was prepared, but they were hesitant to plant the seedlings.

Chen Jiazhi didn't have this concern.

After a harsh winter comes spring, and after a market downturn comes a rebound.

In the past two years, thanks to the efforts of the "vegetable basket project" and market demand, the area under vegetable cultivation has been increasing.

从1990年到1999年，我国蔬菜种植面积由0.95亿亩增加到2.002亿亩，产量由1.95亿吨增至4.5亿吨。

The average annual growth rate is around 8.5%.

Almost every year, a large number of new vegetable bases are built, especially around Guangzhou and Shenzhen, where various vegetable markets are springing up one after another, and they mainly grow leafy vegetables.

However, in 1995, the planting area was probably not yet saturated, but only close to saturation.

Recently, the weather in the Pearl River Delta has been good, shortening the growing season and causing a rapid increase in production, which has led to a drop in prices.

However, market demand remains, but due to transportation limitations, the complementarity between the major production areas is also very poor.

Even if the market slump lasts a long time, it won't last very long.

As long as the weather fluctuates slightly, such as if Shenzhen experiences a heavy rainstorm tomorrow, causing flooding, the entire Pearl River Delta region will see a surge in prices.

Or a rain shower in Dongguan or Huizhou would be fine.

As long as you don't come to Guangzhou, you'll be fine.

Once you're here, you can only leave it to fate. But that's how it is with growing vegetables; if you want to make money, you can't be afraid.

On the contrary, when everyone is afraid, we should attack even more fiercely.

The day's busyness came to an end, the stars climbed into the night sky, and it was no longer as hot as during the day.

Chen Jiazhi doesn't plan to go to the market today either. The market is slow and he's not busy, but he can still maintain his business by focusing on quality.

At this point, production work became more important, and he needed to stay behind to strengthen the ideological foundation of the group.

As the last truckload of vegetables was dispatched, warehouse manager Wang Hong provided accurate data on the cold storage inventory.

There were about 131 tons of bok choy, which is a considerable amount, but the vegetable fields were empty.

Currently, stall number 63 can move about 15 tons of goods per day, while Tongxingtai sometimes moves 5 tons and sometimes 10 tons.

Chen Jiazhi explained the situation to everyone.

"If we can maintain the current supply, by June 12th, the bok choy in the cold storage will be gone, and the market won't be able to get any more produce. We'll still run out of vegetables. So what are you thinking?"

"You want to rely on De Liang's 100 mu of green bell peppers to cover your expenses?"

"A week ago, Yongfeng and Rixin both volunteered to pull up the seedlings and transplant the bok choy. Now that they've just cleared the land, they've chickened out?"

"It's like playing Texas Hold'em. If you're confident in your hand and only have a high-ranking card, but you don't even dare to look at other players' cards when you have a high-ranking card, then what's the point of gambling?"

“I’ll teach you how to gamble. There are plenty of vegetable fields now. Two hundred acres of land in the second and third groups of the northern area are gradually coming to fruition. In the southern area, in addition to the one hundred acres that have already been planted, there are also two hundred acres of vacant land. Deliang’s green peppers will also be pulled up soon.”

"In other words, we have plenty of land, a full 500 acres of open space. Now is the time to use up all our ammunition!"

"Now, I'm asking the vegetable market to go all out to plant seedlings. With more than 200 people, each person is planting an average of 0.3 mu per day, which means they can plant more than 70 mu a day and finish in seven or eight hours!"

There is a sufficient supply of seedlings in these plug trays.

Because when cultivating seedlings, we didn't expect the market to suddenly collapse, and we even considered that heavy rain and typhoons would destroy some of the vegetable fields, so we cultivated more seedlings.

Therefore, Chen Jiazhi has the confidence to make this decision.

Yi Dinggan, Li Mingkun, Qi Yongfeng, and others were also shocked by Chen Jiazhi's decision.

That's a real gambler!

This batch of bok choy that just entered the warehouse was planted on 300 mu in 9 days, and now it will take 7 days to plant 500 mu.

This is truly a case of the small fry compared to the big fish.

Yi Dinggan pondered for a moment and said, "The risk is very high. If a torrential rain comes halfway through planting and floods the vegetable market, we will really go bankrupt!"

Jiangxin Market has a unique topography, with rivers on both the north and south sides. It's not afraid of ordinary heavy rain, but if there's a torrential downpour and the rivers overflow, it'll probably be in big trouble.

"Since it's a gamble, we must take the risks."

Chen Jiazhi laughed heartily, "Let's do it! If we're going to gamble, let's gamble to the fullest!"

"If we get flooded, we can start over as soon as possible. As long as we keep enough seedlings in the seed trays and maximize our productivity, we will always be able to harvest vegetables a week faster than others."

"This week is enough to recover the losses!"

This was an unknown gamble, and Chen Jiazhi didn't know the answer either. But if he didn't dare to gamble in 1995, he might as well retire early and go home to enjoy his retirement.

"Damn, let's do it!"

"Fuck you!"

"This is what betting on the market is all about!"

Yi Dinggan glanced at Qi Yongfeng and felt that the kid was subtly criticizing him.

But it has to be said that the feeling of betting everything is always exhilarating!

...

Another day.

Chen Jiazhi rarely gets up early; he arrived at the market before dawn.

However, many people arrived earlier than him, and the vegetable market had already begun planting seedlings.

Some people were pushing wheelbarrows to transport seedlings in trays, while others were squatting on the ground planting seedlings with small hoes, all busy at work.

Chen Jiazhi walked alone in the vegetable field. Except for the green peppers in the northern group, the rest of the vegetable fields were empty, but the green peppers also needed to be pulled up today.

Harvest one batch, pull up another, and end its two-month glorious journey.

Even now, green peppers are still priced at 1.2 yuan per jin (0.5 catties), and 1.5 yuan per jin are supplied to Hong Kong, contributing more than 20,000 yuan in revenue every day.

It's just as good as twice the amount of bok choy.

This proves that Chen Jiazhi still has a keen market sense, and his judgments are even more accurate than before due to the times.

After all, he was able to survive even in a highly competitive era because of his long-term stability and his ability to capitalize on market trends every few months.

He sees the current market downturn as a series of opportunities.

Chasing highs and selling lows is human nature, and no one understands the market's temperament better than him right now.

After inspecting the fields, Chen Jiazhi returned to his office, brewed a cup of Biluochun tea, and then sat down at his computer to start working.

He was a complete beginner when it came to using computers, and found it very difficult.

Where do I click the mouse?
How do I click?

Where did the document I was working on go, and how do I get it back?
This left him feeling quite lost and confused.

Fortunately, he asked Huang Chuan to buy a book at the electronics market these past two days: "Windows 95 Learning Shortcuts (Chinese Version)".

This book solved my immediate problem.

He began to study and practice step by step, reading and repeatedly operating the exercises. It took a bit of time, but fortunately he was young and energetic, and now he has a strong interest in it.

Interest is the best teacher.

He hadn't been to the market recently, so he spent a lot of time every day studying how to use the computer.

He sees computers as having many uses these days, especially spreadsheets for data entry.

This is very useful for the daily management of the market, as well as the management of financial and sales data.

In the vegetable wholesale business, the most important thing is bookkeeping.

He does nothing else on the computer these days but enters sales data into spreadsheets every day.

The user experience has been very good, and it has inspired me to promote the digitalization of office work.

At least financially, that's how it should be done.

After a series of mechanical keystrokes, Chen Jiazhi completed the entry of the latest day's sales data.

The data in the table is very intuitive and clear.

Actually, Yi Dinggan's gamble on the market this time wasn't a complete failure; he seized the opportunity to sell good vegetables for a few days before the Dragon Boat Festival.

6.1日菜心和空心菜卖了11.4万，6.2日菜心卖了9.6万，这两天就卖了20万。

Even during the three or four days when prices plummeted, sales were still decent.

Including green peppers, sales have reached 750,000 yuan since June as of this morning.

That's also very good data.

The next few days will be relatively more difficult.

Then Chen Jiazhi started calculating the expenses for this period on the computer, treating it as practice.

A considerable amount of money was spent.

Kaopu Fresh spent 72 yuan on a building, 21 yuan on a car and pager, 39 yuan on salaries, 50 yuan on agricultural supplies, and tens of thousands more on the construction of a canteen. The total amount of major expenditures is about 190 million yuan.

Even so, there was still a surplus of 170 million last month.

In addition, another 75 yuan was sold this month, so the speed at which they spend money is really not good.

...

In the afternoon, Chen Jiazhi arrived in Dongxiang.

The planting of seedlings in Dongxiang has been completed, covering a total of 50 mu. The seedlings planted a few days ago have had their shade nets removed and are growing very fast.

If the market continues to be bad, we can actually take over after the cold storage inventory is sold out.

This is also the last batch of vegetables at the Dongxiang vegetable market.

Chen Jiazhi and Ao Dehai walked in the fields, accompanied by two large bear dogs.

"We've actually done quite well these past few months, and the output of dishes has been very consistent."

"Haha, it's all thanks to the boss's excellent teaching~" Ao Dehai laughed. "I remember it was around this time last year, you were in the field talking about the stubble rotation period."

Chen Jiazhi glanced around at the vegetable seedlings from time to time, and said, "I've taught you, but you still have to be willing to learn."

Since January, Dongxiang vegetable market has been able to produce vegetables every day.

Although the market was generally mediocre most of the time, he was able to make consistent profits, which shows that Ao Dehai had truly mastered the art.

Chen Jiazhi added, "Jiangxin Market will be expanding. You'll go there next month as a team leader. When the new base is built, I'll let you be the first one to go."

"I'm fine with anything, boss, whatever you say."

"Well, let's fight this last battle well. I feel like we still have a chance."

These group leaders each have their own unique characteristics; some are steady and reliable, some are meticulous, and one is a gambler.
Actually, everything is pretty good.

Ao Dehai and Ao Deliang were an unexpected bonus, and it was quite fulfilling to watch them grow up.

Two more days passed.

Jiangxin Vegetable Market achieved a respectable result with a yield of 5166 jin of green peppers per mu and total sales of 354 million yuan.

The vegetable market situation has not improved; on the contrary, it has become increasingly difficult, and vegetable prices have fallen into a quagmire.

The price of common bok choy has dropped to 2-4 cents per kilogram, a price rarely seen in the past two years.

With economic development and rising wages, the income from growing vegetables has been quite considerable in recent years.

Now, the signs of a market slump are becoming increasingly pronounced.

(End of this chapter)