1994: Vegetable farmers strike back

Chapter 409 Sweet and Refreshing
Actually, there are still vegetables in the market's cold storage; 300 tons haven't been sold yet, but given the current situation, the remaining vegetables won't last more than two days.

Right now, shipping from the bustling vegetable market is just right.

Ao Dehai was inspecting the workers packing boxes when he heard Xiaoxia shouting.

"I've said it so many times, when packing choy sum, hold it by the 'tail' with both hands. It's quick and prevents it from falling apart."

"And the bok choy is scattered. Don't try to cover it up. Take out the scattered goods. If it's for export, if one batch of vegetables is scattered, the whole container of vegetables worth tens of thousands of yuan will be wasted. Do you think you can afford to lose that?"

Ao Dehai looked over and saw Xiaoxia taking a handful of scattered cabbage hearts out of the styrofoam box.

Another female worker looked gloomy, somewhat annoyed at being reprimanded, but dared not argue back.

Xiaoxia gave her a few words of advice, but simply rearranged the dishes.

Ao Dehai thought to himself that she had never had this kind of patience before. Huang Juan had told him that Xiaoxia and Huang Shan wanted to go back to Huacheng.

The wages in Huacheng were higher, while those in Fanrong Market were much lower, but that shouldn't be the case now.

With broccoli and leafy greens already exported, and now shipments going to Huacheng, the market has never seen such a large volume of vegetables being received and shipped.

This not only brought him back to the familiar field of vegetable growing, but also gave the elderly people he brought from Huacheng a long-lost sense of motivation.

No one is thinking about going back to Huacheng anymore.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange is also doing well.

As long as these veteran vegetable workers, like Xiaoxia, give full play to their initiative and help others, the prosperity of the vegetable market will become more and more stable and faster.

Ao Dehai went to the vegetable field again.

Heavy rain is falling in South China, and Shanghai is also experiencing rain. It's still chilly in the mornings and evenings, but there's plenty of sunshine. Workers wear jackets when they go out in the morning, but come home in short sleeves and sweat a lot.

In this kind of weather, the rain is not harmful; on the contrary, it nourishes the land like sweet dew, allowing the cabbage to grow more vigorously.

Although its growth rate is not as fast as Huacheng's, it grows better.

The boss had reminded him to grow more leafy vegetables, and he took it to heart. In addition to 200 mu of broccoli, the other 300 mu were planted with bok choy, Chinese kale, and romaine lettuce.

After harvesting the 200 mu of broccoli, the entire area was planted with bok choy and Chinese kale within half a month.

Now, nourished by the soil, rain, and sunshine, they have grown into half-grown seedlings.

He was like a gambler, betting everything on himself and then hitting the bullseye.

But he still felt it wasn't enough to sell.

Besides sending two or three containers of goods to Japan every week, the boss is asking for 40 tons of vegetables to be sent to Huacheng every day starting today. Where is he going to find so many vegetables?
No wonder vegetable farmers love to gamble on market trends. The more experienced a vegetable farmer is, the more he resembles a gambler, except his boss is a gambling god.

...

Lianzhou Xishan Town is surrounded by mountains, with the continuous mountain ranges resembling a giant dragon coiled around it. The Dongbei River flows through the town, creating a land of fish and rice on both banks.

At this moment, Huang Chuan stood on the edge of a hillside terrace, his tall and thin figure resembling a bamboo pole, making one worry that he might be blown off the cliff by the mountain wind.

But actually he was very steady. Two years of farm experience had given him a good physique. It's just that at 19, he was still growing but not gaining weight, no matter how much he ate.

He stood on the edge of the high mountain plateau, gazing at the endless rice paddies of Xishang Town, with a vast eggplant field behind him.

The base still bears traces of the heavy rain, and the eggplants near the ground are covered in mud.

But after the dirt was wiped off, the long, purplish-red eggplant still had smooth, beautiful lines and a soft sheen on its surface.

The rain only added some mud to the soil, and the same went for tomatoes, cucumbers, and other vegetables.

A little girl called out, "Huang Chuan, you're slacking off again! Come over and pick some eggplants to take home!"

Huang Chuan snapped out of his daze. "They're here."

The woman next to her scolded the girl, "Huang Jia, is that how you address Huang Chuan? You should call him 'brother.' Don't you know any manners?"

The eggplant field behind us belongs to Huang Chuan's family.

Huang Jianyuan and Huang Chuan arranged for Kaopu Fresh to establish a cooperative base in their village, and Huang Chuan's family took the lead in growing vegetables for this purpose.

They chose to grow eggplants, and the harvest is just beginning.

The two bamboo baskets were also filled with long, purplish-red eggplants. As soon as Huang Chuan approached, another man with gray hair picked up a bamboo carrying pole from the ground.

“I’ll do it. You work at the company, so it’s fine for you to come back and visit, but it’s not good to do personal work.”

"Dad, it's okay."

Huang Jianjun didn't say anything more, but he had already picked up two baskets of eggplants and walked briskly along the country path.

Huang Chuan followed behind, the two baskets of eggplants swaying back and forth, yet they could never escape the control of that figure.

There were many families collecting vegetables along the way.

This family has a few baskets of tomatoes, that family has a few baskets of cucumbers, or maybe bitter melons and loofahs.

The conditions on this high mountain are not as good as those at the foot of the mountain, but it is isolated from the world, has a good environment, and fewer pests and diseases. At the same time, as the boss said, the temperature is relatively mild in summer, making it more suitable for growing vegetables than the plains.

Many mountainous areas in Huacheng are developing vegetable cultivation, and many vegetable market owners have begun to invest in vegetable bases in Conghua, Yangshan and other places.

However, very few people invest in vegetable markets in Lianzhou. It's mostly locals who grow vegetables, sell them to vegetable vendors, and then sell them to big cities.

Huang Chuan didn't know why the boss had chosen Lianzhou; it was too far away and the transportation was inconvenient.

As he crossed the intersection, someone called out to him.

"Ah Chuan, I'd also like to sell my vegetables to your company. Do you buy them?"

Huang Chuan sized up the man; he was clearly neither from the village nor a farmer from the cooperative base.

Just as he was about to refuse, he heard another person shout from ahead, "A-Chuan's warehouse isn't that big, they won't accept yours!" Huang Chuan nodded. The 1,000-mu cooperative base could harvest 100 jin of vegetables per mu every day, which would amount to 50 tons.

The company's cold storage in Xishan Town also has a storage capacity of over 300 tons, which was filled in just a few days.

The cold storage facility is also a major fixed asset of the company in Lianzhou, serving functions such as acquisition, packaging, pre-cooling, storage and transportation, with a total investment of several hundred thousand yuan.

With roads to the outside world blocked, local vegetables can't be transported out, and vegetable vendors either dare not buy them or drive down prices drastically.

Experienced vegetable farmers know that if solanaceous vegetables are not harvested in time, it will greatly affect the harvest period and yield, putting farmers in a dilemma.

Only Reliable Fresh continues to purchase vegetables from partner farmers in accordance with the contract.

Cash on delivery, no outstanding payments.

This also puts farmers at ease.

In the evening, farmers from other villages came to Huang Chuan, but he refused them all.

For two consecutive days, the cold storage was filled with more and more vegetables. He also frequently contacted the vendors by phone, knowing that the market was good and vegetable prices were rising across the board.

However, in Xishang Town, the purchase price from outsiders kept getting lower and lower.

However, the cooperative base is still stable, and farmers are harvesting vegetables in an orderly manner. Since it is not yet the peak production period, harvesting every two or three days has not caused any backlog.

Finally, Huang Chuan received the time when the road would be reopened to traffic.

He contacted the vehicle in advance and the stall to confirm the quantity to be delivered. The vegetables were packed and set off before the road was even open.

Truckloads of vegetables followed and drove towards Huacheng.

At this moment, Fang Xuelin also arrived in Xi'an Town from Huacheng.

He walked through the vegetable fields of the cooperative base, chatting with the farmers, and every household had a smile on their face.

He was very enthusiastic, and in just a moment, Fang Xuelin had a bag of plums and a bag of bayberries in his hands, which he couldn't refuse even if he wanted to.

He took a plum and ate it; it was very sweet, so the bayberries must be just as good.

The large temperature difference between day and night in mountainous areas allows fruits to accumulate more sugar.

The same goes for vegetables. The vegetables here have a rich flavor and taste great. The mild climate is also more suitable for growing vegetables than in Huacheng.

Walking through the vegetable gardens of each household, Fang Xuelin soon encountered Huang Chuan.

"Huang Chuan, come and eat some plums, they're very sweet."

“I also have plum trees at home.” Huang Chuan took the plum, took a bite, and found it to be very sweet.

"Manager Fang, are all the vegetables alright?"

Fang Xuelin said, "The eggplants in your house are grafted seedlings, so there's absolutely no problem with them. At most, there are only minor issues, which can be resolved by spraying some pesticide."

He came to Xishang Town precisely to verify the seedling situation.

Half of the seedlings in the 1,000-mu cooperative base are plug seedlings cultivated on-site, and the other half are grafted seedlings from the nursery.

Compared to farmers outside the cooperative base, the seedlings have obvious advantages, with very little fruit drop and the plants recovering quickly.

Just then, he saw Huang Jianjun walking over. "Uncle Huang, how's the eggplant harvest?"

"More than two acres of eggplants, each harvest yields at least two or three hundred catties." Huang Jianjun smiled, and also noticed the plums in Fang Xuelin and Huang Chuan's hands.

"Manager Fang, I have plums at home too, feel free to pick any."

Fang Xuelin took another plum to eat and gave one to Huang Jianjun as well.

“Your eggplants are grafted seedlings and haven’t reached their peak production period yet. In a while, you can harvest two to three hundred catties a day. If managed well, the harvest period will be much longer than that of ordinary eggplants.”

"I'll do as you teach me."

Picking two to three hundred catties of eggplants at a time, at the current purchase price of 5 mao per catty, can bring in over a hundred yuan.

If the high-yield and stable harvest period can be extended by ten to fifteen days, the income can be increased by one or two thousand yuan.

For rural farmers in mountain villages whose annual per capita income is only a little over 1,000 yuan, this is quite considerable.

Fang Xuelin traveled all over the cooperative base. The people here were very hardworking. Everywhere he went, he could see people busy in the vegetable fields.

If you can make money, you'll naturally be diligent.

The vegetable farmers wish they could be working in the fields all the time.

Having learned about the situation, Fang Xuelin prepared to return home early in the morning.

The mountains were shrouded in mist. At a crossroads, he saw Huang Chuan and his son waving. There were also villagers nearby, and baskets and other items were laid out on the ground.

He assumed the driver was a villager looking for a ride to the city, so he told the driver to stop.

Huang Jianjun said, "Manager Fang, I picked some plums and some bayberries. Take them back and let the bosses have a taste."

It turned out that all those things on the ground were meant for him to take back.

Fang Xuelin scratched his head. "I can't accept this."

Huang Chuan said, "Brother Fang, take it back. It's all a small token of our appreciation."

Fang Xuelin got out of the car and shook hands with each of the villagers to express his gratitude.

In the evening, Li Xiu washed a plate of bayberries and plums and placed it on the desk. Chen Jiazhi took a plum and ate it; its sweetness was refreshing.

(End of this chapter)