1994: Vegetable farmers strike back

Chapter 394 Even if you can't hold on, you have to.
Chen Jiazhi rode his bicycle along the path through the vegetable field, with lush green vegetable leaves on both sides, and two large dogs, one black and one white, chasing after the wheels.

The car wheels rolled over small puddles, splashing mud and water. The dog's paws stepped into the water, then suddenly darted forward, excitedly chasing after the white butterflies in the vegetable field.

The black dog in front suddenly stopped, its ears perked up, and the white dog behind it didn't stop and crashed into it with a thud, the two rolling into a ball.

Chen Jiazhi rang his bicycle bell, rode past, and cursed, "Two stupid dogs."

"Wang!"

"Wang!"

"Idiot!"

"We made you all follow Yi Dinggan to patrol the fields, and now you've all been spoiled rotten, haven't you?"

"Wang!"

"Wang!"

Chen Jiazhi sped up his bike, running around the market, heading towards wherever there were lots of green vegetables, with the two dogs chasing after him, cursing as they went.

The busyness of sitting in the office in the morning vanishes completely, replaced by endless comfort and relaxation.

Workers riding tricycles carrying vegetable baskets would occasionally pass by him with smiles, and vegetable farmers bending down to pick vegetables would sometimes look up and shout a few words.

"Mr. Chen, walking your dog?"

"Don't you think our vegetables look beautiful?"

"The dishes are beautiful, and the handiwork is beautiful too."

"So you're just not pretty, right?"

"..."

Chen Jiazhi would chat for a bit, but because he also had to keep an eye on the vegetable field, he was often no match for Chen.

After driving around in circles for a while, he finally spotted Yi Dinggan's motorcycle by the river.

Next to it was a clearing that had been tilled, where a vegetable farmer was sitting backwards with a small hoe, transplanting seedlings.

Yi Dinggan stood in the middle of the vegetable field, side by side with his brother-in-law Wu Chengyong.

"what's the topic?"

The two turned around at the same time, and Wu Chengyong said, "We're planting lettuce seedlings. We plan to plant 20 mu today."

"Is there a problem? Are there not enough workers?"

Chen Jiazhi asked doubtfully, "The lettuce is performing well and is very popular in the market. There shouldn't be any problem with the market making minor adjustments to the planting structure."

"That's enough, we'll definitely finish planting today." Wu Chengyong scratched his head and looked at Yi Dinggan.

Yi Dinggan remained silent, only smoking, his eyes fixed on the workers planting seedlings, as if he could see through them...

You can really see the beauty in it.

Chen Jiazhi was also stunned.

A vegetable worker wearing a sun hat was seen grabbing a few seedlings from a seedling tray with his left hand and then wielding a hoe with his right.

Whoosh~
A row of lettuce seedlings were planted in just three or four seconds.

There are exactly 6 plants in a row.

Then, with a whoosh, another row was planted, and the workers moved the small stools they were sitting on.

The small stool is tied to your bottom with a rope, so you don't need to use your hands to move it; you use your hands to move the acupoint plate.
This scene is full of the wisdom of the working people, and also has a sense of speed and aesthetics.

Chen Jiazhi understood the general idea.

"When did it get so fast?"

"It's been recently," Yi Dinggan said, not entirely sure. "Since it's almost the end of the month, I asked the finance department to calculate the workers' commissions, and then I realized something was wrong—the commissions were higher than expected."

"Upon investigation, the problem was found to be in the seedling planting process. I thought there was a mistake in the statistics, so I came to the site to confirm it."

Chen Jiazhi guessed that he had also suspected that the group leader was engaging in favoritism and corruption, but he couldn't say it directly because Wu Chengyong was there.

Moreover, judging from the situation, the team leader is perfectly fine.

Yi Dinggan then said quietly, "Perhaps too many people were transferred, so they were forced into it."

"..."

"You guys continue your conversation, I'm leaving now."

Did you bring any cigarettes?

Chen Jiazhi took out a cigarette case, pulled out two cigarettes and handed them over. Yi Dinggan pretended to accept the cigarettes first, then snatched the cigarette case from his hand with lightning speed and handed it to Wu Chengyong.

"Here you go, Yong-ge. I'm entrusting you with the task of planting lettuce seedlings."

Wu Chengyong was stunned for a moment, and Chen Jiazhi said speechlessly, "Take it and smoke it first, Brother Yong. I'll send you another one another day. This seedling is well grown."

Although the planting speed is fast, just one glance is enough to tell that the survival rate of the lettuce is very high.

Wu Chengyong asked in a low voice, "Won't they cut the workers' commissions?"

"will not."

"Whatever the price is, is the price."

Chen Jiazhi and Yi Dinggan gave their answers almost simultaneously, which attracted the attention of the workers planting the seedlings.

Chen Jiazhi raised his voice and said, "As long as the survival rate can be guaranteed, we will pay you every penny that is due."

The workers planting the seedlings chimed in with a few words, then continued planting the seedlings with their heads down.

Chen Jiazhi and Yi Dinggan also walked out of the vegetable garden. When they got to the motorcycle, Yi Dinggan said, "I didn't expect to make such great progress."

"Can planting bok choy really be this fast?"

"Recently, we've been using a seeder to sow the Chinese cabbage directly, without transplanting, but the process looks much smoother than before, so it must be much faster."

Chen Jiazhi laughed and said, "That's great! I wish there were more good things like this."

According to Yi Dinggan's initial estimate, a worker could plant 1000 to 1400 seedlings of Chinese cabbage and Chinese kale per day, so the commission was two cents per seedling.

Lettuce seedlings are larger and have shorter rootstocks, making them less prone to breakage and allowing for faster planting.

Yi Dinggan had also thought of this, so the commission for planting lettuce was slightly lower.

But unexpectedly, the workers also evolved under pressure. At the speed they were just at, each person could plant at least 4000 seedlings a day. Even though the commission per plant was lower than that for bok choy, they still earned sixty or seventy yuan a day.

From the perspective of market management costs, it is also worthwhile. The commission is calculated per plant, and the total commission is fixed. Planting earlier can actually save some basic wages, and the time saved can be used to plant other seedlings or do other work.

For the vegetable cooks, the more they put in, the more money they earn, so it's not a loss.

"They were all forced into it."

"If you're willing to pay them, the power of workers can always be astonishing."

“But we can’t keep going like this,” Yi Dinggan said. “Labor costs are getting higher and higher. Fewer people are willing to do jobs like watering, which are hard to calculate commissions for, because everyone wants to earn commissions.”

Chen Jiazhi leaned against his bicycle, lit the last cigarette he had managed to smoke in the emergency, and gazed at the vegetable field filled with ditches.

This structure makes it easy to use a manure scoop for watering and also makes it easy to pull a water pipe for watering.

Yi Dinggan noticed his gaze. "What are you thinking now?"

Chen Jiazhi pondered for a moment and said, "I want to change to micro-sprinkler irrigation, but the layout of the vegetable field is not suitable. The vegetable beds are too short, which is a waste of pipes."

"That thing must be very expensive, it's completely unnecessary, it works just like this."

"When the water pipes are long, people are needed to help pull them. One water pump requires two people, which is tiring, requires no technical skills, and wastes manpower. If we install micro-sprinkler irrigation, can you calculate how many people we can save?"

"Especially during the high temperatures of summer."

Yi Dinggan muttered to himself, thinking that if they were to calculate this, the amount of manpower that could be saved would be enormous.

"Didn't you say the layout of the vegetable garden was inappropriate?"

"This stuff is expensive; it costs a lot of money to grow it per acre. The cheaper ones are prone to spoilage..."

"Huh? Cheap one?" Chen Jiazhi's eyes lit up, and he said, "I only want the cheap one, I don't want anything that's not cheap!"

Yi Dinggan frowned, puzzled, and asked, "The cheap ones are prone to breaking?"

"Just replace it if it's broken."

"That would be too much trouble."

“Apart from the supervisor, the other parts can be treated as disposable and replaced once a year, right?”

"Holy crap, you can do that? Is it even possible?"

“I think we can give it a try. If it works, we can use this method not only at Jiangxin Vegetable Market, but also at other bases. We should install micro-sprinkler irrigation on all of them first.”

The high cost of micro-sprinkler irrigation is mainly due to the fact that high-quality nozzles and other components are still largely dependent on imports.

Domestically produced ones are cheaper, but they also have various problems; the nozzles may become clogged or break after a period of use.

But from another perspective, instead of choosing the best, you can choose the cheapest and most usable ones, and then replace them after using them for a while.

The cost might actually be lower than using more expensive options.

Upon considering this possibility, Chen Jiazhi couldn't wait to drag Yi Dinggan to Youyi Agricultural Supplies.

He knew that Hong Zhong was there today.

After Hong Zhong heard his idea, he immediately consulted someone about the price, but Chen Jiazhi felt it wasn't cheap enough.

"Let them give us a new quote, saying that we don't need a three-to-five-year usage period, or even two years, just one year is enough!"

"Make them give us their lowest price!"

Not only Yi Dinggan and Hong Zhong, but even the manufacturers were dumbfounded. What kind of evil magic is this?
Chen Jiazhi took the phone and said to the manufacturer, "Don't think you can get fat in one bite. You can't catch up with imported technology in a short time."

Instead of doing that, why not take a different approach: first, seize the market with extremely affordable products, and then use the profits to invest in technological advancements!

Due to reasons such as the implementation of the household contract responsibility system, the development of micro-sprinkler irrigation in many parts of China stagnated or even regressed in the 80s.

There is currently a significant gap compared to international standards, but there are still quite a few domestic manufacturers producing related products.

"I need to report to my superiors first, but I personally think this idea is brilliant and I will persuade the factory to give it a try."

"It's done."

After hanging up the phone, Chen Jiazhi left the rest to Yi Dinggan and Hong Zhong.

You can try it out first, and if it's successful, you can quickly roll out the micro-sprinkler irrigation system.

If imported equipment is used to build a vegetable market with micro-sprinkler irrigation facilities, the investment cost per acre would be at least 10,000 to 20,000 yuan, or even more.

Apart from big bosses from Hong Kong investing in the mainland, very few people do this.

Even if a vegetable market invested in by mainland Chinese uses micro-sprinkler irrigation, it still uses domestically produced equipment.

But for Chen Jiazhi, even domestically produced ones are a bit expensive. He can only come up with about ten million yuan at most right now.

Most of the money will be used to build new or expand existing facilities, leaving little for micro-irrigation.

He can only become a heretical practitioner for now.

As noon approached and the yang energy was at its peak, baskets of vegetables were successively put into the warehouse for pre-cooling.

In the afternoon, Xue Chenglin from Indonesia also took the lead in paying the advance payment.

Following closely behind, two companies, one Thai and one Japanese, also deposited advance payments into the account.

It only conveyed one meaning.

Ship it as soon as possible.

Hundreds of vegetable harvesters worked from morning till night, still wearing headlamps as they picked vegetables in the fields after dark, and didn't finish until 10 p.m.

By the time we finished, it was nearly midnight.

When Chen Jiazhi, Li Xiu, Yi Dinggan, Chen Jiafang, and Xue Jun returned home hungry, only their mother, Peng Guozhen, was still watching TV and waiting. After they returned, she quickly put the food on the table.

"Mom, you should go to sleep first."

"Hmm~" Peng Guozhen was indeed starting to feel the strain.

Before sitting down at the table, Yi Dinggan poured the wine, saying, "Jiazhi, you can't take it anymore!"

"How about I give you two days off to rest?"

“I said the vegetables can’t hold up. At this rate of harvesting, no matter how many vegetables are in the field, they won’t be able to survive.”

"Brother Yi, brother, you're my brother, even if you can't hold on, you have to."

(End of this chapter)