When Si Yufang received the news and arrived at Si Nan's house, Si Chengye and the others had already left.
Si Nan was about to close the gate, but when he saw her, he said coldly, "If aunt comes to blame me, I don't want to listen. Please go back."
Si Yufang sighed and said, "Xiao Nan, you misunderstood. Auntie came to see if you were injured."
Si Nan was stunned for a moment, then his expression relaxed, "I'm fine, thank you for your concern, aunt."
The two of them were silent for a while. Si Nan said, "Aunt, do you want to come in and sit down?"
"I won't sit down anymore." Si Yufang shook her head. "Your uncle, cousin and I have been looking for jobs around the base these days, but we haven't found a suitable one. Today the agricultural park is recruiting workers, so we plan to go there and take a look."
"Agricultural park?" Si Nan frowned. She remembered that jobs in the agricultural park were in high demand. In order to cope with the cold winter, the base had built a large number of greenhouses in the agricultural park, which would provide heating so that crops could grow normally during severe cold weather.
Working there, you don't have to be exposed to the wind and rain, and you can also take leftover vegetables and leaves from the agricultural park home, wash them, and cook them.
Compared with other jobs, it is the first choice for some survivors who have little education, no skills and make a living by farming.
The agricultural park has recruited a lot of people before, and the jobs are in short supply. If we recruit more people now, I’m afraid it won’t be easy to get a job.
"Aunt, wait a minute. I'll go with you." Si Nan ran back to the house and fiddled with it for a while. He quickly took out a small sack, closed the door and said to Si Yufang, "Let's go."
Si Yufang didn't know what she wanted to do and didn't ask much. She took her back to her home. Zheng Guang and his two sons, as well as his two daughters-in-law, were all wearing clothes that had been washed clean and had some patches on them. They were ready to go to the agricultural park to take a look.
Si Nan glanced at them and said nothing, then turned and walked to the next room. Liu Dalin and his family were also dressed neatly, and it seemed that they were also going to the agricultural park to apply for jobs.
Si Nan walked into the yard and asked, "Uncle, didn't you go to the construction site to apply for a job as a decorator yesterday? Why didn't you go to work?"
"Xiao Nan, why are you here?" Liu Dalin was a little surprised to see Si Nan appear. He scratched his head and said, "Doing that job is too stressful. The base uses those criminals as free labor. They are always causing trouble. Ordinary people like us who go to work are often bullied by them. Yesterday, I saw with my own eyes a few criminals push a man they disliked from the third floor and break his leg. They were only beaten up by the soldiers and locked up in the prison in the west district, while the man's second half of his life was ruined. I don't have any skills, I just want to have a stable job and make money to support my family. I heard that the agricultural park is recruiting a group of workers today, and those with planting experience are preferred. Isn't this good news for our broad working people? Of course I have to give it a try."
"Xiao Nan, you don't know how hard it is to find a job at this base." Mao Pingzhen interrupted and complained, "Originally, your two cousins and I wanted to apply for jobs as cleaners in government buildings, street sweepers, or factories in industrial parks. We didn't expect those jobs to have been taken long ago, and the few remaining jobs were reserved for those with connections, relationships, and food bribes. We have nothing, so they don't want us. No one cares when we complain, and we are threatened that if we talk nonsense again, we will never find a job at the base. I heard that there are shady things going on in the agricultural park recruitment this time. I don't know if we can get in. If not, my family won't be able to go to work, earn points, and will starve to death."
"Why are you talking so much? No one will think you are dumb if you don't speak." Liu Dalin was not happy to listen to her nonsense. He said a few words to her and turned to Si Nan and said, "There is always a way out. Let's do our best and leave the rest to fate."
Si Nan touched the bag in his hand and said, "Uncle, it's best that you think so. It's getting late. Let's go quickly."
The agricultural park is in the eastern area near the outer circle of the base, where there is endless developed land.
The midday spring sun was shining all over the earth, and the breeze was ruffling Sinan's hair. She stood at the entrance of the agricultural park and saw many construction workers using flags, cordons and lime to divide the vast land into pieces under the blue sky and white clouds.
Large military trucks were parked next to the separated areas, and workers were carrying construction materials for building greenhouses from the trucks, and were building the greenhouses at a intensive pace.
It is already March, and only about 300 greenhouses have been built in the agricultural park. If the pace continues, and if tens of thousands of greenhouses are not built before the severe cold, there is a fear that there will not be enough food to supply the survivors, whose population is close to five million.
Si Nan was vaguely worried. He had a feeling that this time the severe cold would come early, and much earlier than previous natural disasters. He wondered whether the greenhouses in the agricultural park could be built in time.
"Xiao Nan, we're almost there, what are you looking at?"
Si Yufang, who was waiting in line behind him, collected her thoughts. Si Nan retracted his gaze, shook his head and said, "Nothing, just looking around."
There were three recruitment tables on the left side of the entrance to the agricultural park. The survivors who came to apply for the jobs formed three long queues. It was estimated that there were no less than 20,000 people, but there were less than 2,000 people to be recruited.
With so many people competing for the planting position, not to mention others, even Si Nan, who came prepared, felt overwhelmed.
Si Nan deliberately lined up in front of Si Yufang and the others. When it was her turn, the farm manager handed her a piece of paper and asked her to fill in her past information.
Si Nan filled in the information one by one, emphasizing that her spouse was a surgeon at Shishan Hospital, that she knew Yan Hongyi, the captain of the armed police squadron, and that she had a relationship with Zhou Tai, the commander of the army of the United Front Work Department. She then wrote that Yang Wentao, the captain of the seventh patrol team in the town center, was her cousin's husband, and finally filled in the relationship between her and Liu Dalin's family, Si Yufang's family, and herself.
She opened the bag in her hand, handed it to the person in charge of recruiting workers, and said in a low voice: "I have a lot of fruit and vegetable seeds that are relatively cold-resistant, easy to grow, and have extremely high yields. Our uncles and aunts are experienced farmers who have been farming for decades and are very skilled in growing crops. If you can recruit them all, I can give all these seeds to your Ministry of Agriculture for free."
The natural disasters that have lasted for nearly two and a half years have already turned the earth upside down. Many seeds of crops that humans can eat have disappeared in various natural disasters. The existing seeds are either stockpiled by a few people unintentionally, or stockpiled in advance by local reserves and the country.
Country Z stored a large amount of seeds and supplies before the end of the world. After the earthquake, not many seeds were distributed to local governments. They were all carefully guarded by researchers and leaders of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
If someone sells seeds, no matter what crop they are, people from the Ministry of Agriculture will buy them at a high price. Not to mention that the seeds provided by Sinan are very complete, with at least forty kinds of crop seeds, and each seed comes in several small bags or dozens of seeds. In today's seed shortage, this is definitely a hidden big farmer!
There were two farm office staff standing in front of each recruitment table, and a person from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences was in charge of recruitment.
After seeing what was in Si Nan's bag, the researcher from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences' eyes widened. He pointed at Si Nan excitedly and kept saying "you, you, you" for a long time. He immediately made a decision to recruit Si Yufang, Liu Dalin and the entire family, and politely led Si Nan to sit in the research office of the agricultural park.
"Miss Si, right?" A bunch of older, bespectacled researchers in the Agricultural Science Academy's office surrounded Si Nan and smiled brightly, "Where did Miss Si get so many different kinds of seeds? Do you have any extra ones?"
Si Nan took a sip of the hot tea that Wang, the researcher who had been in charge of receiving her, had made for her. "I'm a fan of doomsday science fiction movies. Before the natural disaster began, I accidentally saw a doomsday warning post. At that time, I saw many people replying to the post, asking if it was true. I didn't feel safe, so I stockpiled a lot of supplies in advance. Two years ago, when I went back to my hometown, I bought a lot of crop seeds on a whim. In the past two years, I have taken these seeds with me wherever I go, planting crops anytime and anywhere. I have never lacked fresh fruits and vegetables, which is why I can live safely until now. I don't have many seeds left. I have to keep some for myself and give some to relatives and friends. This small sack of seeds has already emptied my family's assets, and I don't have any more."
The office was silent for a while. A gray-haired, gaunt, and respectable researcher who knew Cheng Suming, as well as Yan Hongyi and Zhou Tai, who were listed on her resume, asked her, "Actually, with your connections, you can take up any job at our base, but I saw that you wrote "freelance" on your profile. Why is that?"
Si Nan put down the teacup in his hand and smiled faintly: "No reason, I don't have any ambitions, I just want to be a housewife at home, wash clothes and cook, and live a leisurely life."
The researcher smiled and said, "Our Ministry of Agriculture has recently started a land contracting system. The crops we grow are divided into a 4:6 ratio. After the crops are harvested, you only need to hand over 4 points to the base, and you can deal with the remaining 6 points yourself. I wonder if you are interested?"
Si Nan was very excited when he heard this. "How is the contract?"
"Generally speaking, it is exchanged with food or points, and can be contracted for one, two, three or five years, with no limit on the number of years. The maximum land contracted is two mu."
Si Nan hesitated: "Even if I have the ability to contract the land, I don't have the energy and time to manage it. Besides, the severe winter is coming. If I want to plant crops, I have to spend a lot of money to build a greenhouse, heating, and water pipes. It's really a thankless task. Even if I build a greenhouse and plant crops, I still have to guard against thieves and vandalism. I'm tired just thinking about it, so I'd better forget it."
"Don't worry about that. Our Ministry of Agriculture will provide the greenhouse heating water pipes. When the time comes, the Ministry of Agriculture will have special people to patrol and protect the greenhouse. You only need to manage your land."
"So good? There won't be any trap, right?" Si Nan's face was full of doubt.
The researcher said, "If you insist on thinking that, I can only tell you that this is the compensation and benefit our institute gives you for the seeds. The land we contracted out this time is only 50 acres. The purpose is to allow ordinary people to eat fruits and vegetables at reasonable and low prices, and to select better crop seeds from the land of the contractors for cultivation. If you don't want to contract, we will give the quota to others."
After hearing this, Si Nan suddenly felt much more reliable. The fruits and vegetables grown by the military and government will be sold at a unified price. If they are grown on privately contracted land, they will be sold much cheaper than the military.
The Ministry of Agriculture must be short of seeds and wants those who own seeds to contract the land themselves. When they taste the sweetness, they will definitely save the high-quality crop seeds and continue sowing the next year.
The Ministry of Agriculture can take the opportunity to purchase a batch of seeds, start sowing them, and save the seeds when the crops are ripe. In this way, by saving a large number of seeds year after year, the agricultural park will no longer lack seeds of various crops, thus restoring agriculture to its previous state and ensuring food for the nearly five million people in the entire base.
I have to say that the researchers from the Ministry of Agriculture have made a good calculation. No wonder they are willing to cover the heating of the greenhouse and other things. Although they will suffer a loss in the early stage, in the later stage, the entire Shishan base will no longer have food shortages!
For a moment, Si Nan was somewhat moved by the "calculating" thoughts of these researchers. It was really because they were in their positions and never forgot their responsibilities, always trying to bring benefits to the surviving humans.
She no longer hesitated and after asking about the contract price for the two acres of land, she agreed to come back in two days to deliver the contracted grain and sign the contract.
Two days later, Si Nan brought 100 kilograms of rice, 100 kilograms of flour, a box of canned food, and some snacks to the Ministry of Agriculture and signed a three-year contract for two acres of land.
When asked why it was three years instead of five, the answer was that there was not much grain left and the contract could only be held for that long.
She not only gave out seeds, but also contracted the land with grain. Even though she had Cheng Suming as a shield, if she contracted out more food, it would be hard not to make people suspicious about where she got so many supplies.
In order to keep a low profile, she could only contract for three years first. If she earned grain points from the crops grown on the contracted land, it would not be too late for her to renew the contract.
After signing the contract, Si Nan did not rush to her contracted land. Instead, she waited until two months later when the Ministry of Agriculture had basically completed the greenhouses in the planting and animal husbandry areas before she went to see them.
The planting area covers an area of about one thousand acres and the livestock area covers an area of three hundred acres.
Currently, only two-thirds of the land in the planting area has been built with greenhouses, which are divided into two areas: hydroponic and soil culture. The remaining one-third of the land has not yet been repaired.
The hydroponic area is mainly planted in the base greenhouses, and many hydroponic vegetables have been cultivated. Points and food are available for exchange in the base’s agricultural and commercial department, and the prices are not cheap. For example, one pound of hydroponic lettuce requires one point.
The average person can only earn 3-5 points a day, and buying a pound of vegetables requires one-third of their salary. Unless there is a large labor force in the family who earns a lot of points, or if they are rich and have abundant supplies and are able to buy it, ordinary people simply cannot afford it.
Most ordinary people only buy a few pounds of vegetables every three to five days to satisfy their cravings and supplement vitamins. Those who really want to eat vegetables but can't bear to buy them will leave the base and look for wild vegetables to eat.
The agricultural park was empty two months ago, but now a high wall has been built around the entire park, with entrances opened in four directions. Armed soldiers are guarding the entrances, greatly reducing the risk of damage, theft of crops, poultry and livestock.
If you want to enter the agricultural park, you need to wear a work card. Only staff can enter inside. Every day when going to and from get off work, entering and leaving the agricultural park, you have to scan your work card in front of the artificial intelligence scanner installed on both sides of the walls of the four gates before entering.
If your work card is lost, soaked in water, damaged and cannot be scanned, etc., you will need to go to the Ministry of Agriculture office to apply for a new one.
The work cards for the planting area and the animal husbandry area are different. For example, the staff in the planting area all have work cards printed with green plants, while the staff in the animal husbandry area have work cards printed with pink patterns of chickens, ducks, pigs, cattle, sheep, etc.
Each area is divided into different types of work cards, such as ordinary employee cards, management, researchers, etc.
Si Nan had a work card rope around her neck, with the work card hanging in front of her chest. She stood in front of the scanner and put her work card on it. The scanner scanned for a few seconds and made a mechanical sound: "Beep - Contract card No. 01, welcome to the park."
Si Nan's registered profile picture immediately appeared on the scanner. The soldier in charge of guarding the gate took a look at her appearance and found that it was similar to the one on the scanner, so he let her in through the locked side door.
Not only Sinan was surprised that he was contractor No. 1, the first person to contract the land, but other staff members who were queuing up to swipe their cards on both sides of the locked gate were also talking about it.
"What does a contract card mean?"
"Literally, I heard that the planting area and poultry and livestock area opened some areas for contracting to those who have skills and money and grain some time ago."
"Is this true? How come I have never heard of it?"
"This is an internal contract. It's too late for ordinary people like us to know about it. The contracted areas have already been snatched up. Even if we knew about it in advance, we don't have the financial strength to contract it."
"...That's true. I thought that after the natural disaster, the world would be reshuffled and everyone would be equal and start over. I didn't expect that those class privileges would still exist. The rich will become richer and the poor will become poorer. Alas, it's all fate!"
"I don't know where that woman came from, but she actually holds the No. 01 contracting card. It's really enviable."
......
Si Nan followed the signs for the planting area and came to rows of tall planting greenhouses. After searching for a long time, he finally came to the rows of planting greenhouses against the wall under the guidance of a kind staff member.
Here, the land is divided into two-acre and one-acre planting rooms according to the size of the land contracted by each contractor, and each planting room has the contractor's contract number written on it.
These planting houses are built very tall. In order to prevent the greenhouses from collapsing due to accumulated snow when severe cold weather comes, each greenhouse has solid stone pillars built inside for support. The roof is made of steel bars and thickened glass, and ventilation holes are opened on the four sides of the walls. There is also a gate at the entrance of the greenhouse, which the contractor can lock to prevent others from destroying or stealing their greenhouse crops.
Sinan took a look inside and saw that free hydroponic troughs were built on the walls of the greenhouse, which could save land and allow more crops to be grown.
Under the wall, the heating pipes and water pipes are repaired separately, and several rows of fluorescent lamp sockets are installed below the roof, so that when there is no sun in winter, the lights can be used for planting.
Of course, you have to pay for the heating, water and electricity bills yourself, because each contracted greenhouse has water, electricity and gas meters. You also have to spend your grain points to exchange for bulbs from the logistics department to install and use the fluorescent lamps. There are no farm tools, fertilizers, etc., so you have to provide all of them yourself.
The only good thing is that you don’t need to prepare the soil in the greenhouse yourself. You just need to loosen the soil yourself and plan the planting.
Sinan wanted to get into farming, but she didn't have the patience to dig the soil and tend to the crops. Mainly because she was already exhausted managing the two greenhouses in her home, so how could she have the extra energy to plant two acres of land herself?
Si Nan thought about it, walked to the office of the agricultural park, found a senior person in charge, and asked: "If I want to hire workers to farm for me, do I also need to apply for work cards for them?"
The man said, "You can apply for an auxiliary work card to allow them to enter and leave the park freely, but you have to ensure that they are clean and will not steal things from the park or damage the park's facilities and equipment. At the same time, you have to sign an additional guarantee."
"There are surveillance cameras in the park, right?" Si Nan asked.
"Yes." The man pointed to the monitoring room next door: "The park is too large, and the existing surveillance only monitors key areas. There are many blind spots that cannot be seen. The guarantee letter must be signed. If your privately hired workers do something bad, you will be fully responsible."
Si Nan did not sign the letter of guarantee immediately, but said that he would find the person first and then sign it.
She returned home and told Cheng Suming, who had just returned from get off work, about her idea. "I want to find two reliable and clean people to help me farm, but I don't have anyone to choose for the time being. Can you help me think of one?"
"Let Aunt Sheng help find it." Cheng Suming tied an apron around his neck and stood in front of the gas stove cooking. "She is very familiar with the neighbors and knows their temperaments very well. It's right to ask her."
"Yes." Sinan immediately went next door to tell Sheng's mother about this.
Mother Sheng said, "If you don't mind, I can help you with the work. Although I'm in poor health and can't do the work of digging the ground, I can help you take care of the crops. I can water, fertilize, weed, etc. You can just give me a pound of staple food salary every day. In addition, the Northeast sister Wang at the end of the alley is a down-to-earth person, she is not cunning, and she works very quickly. Her husband is a local from Jushi Town. He injured his neck during the earthquake and his head has been tilted. Because the couple has some disabilities, they have not found work in the past few months. They rely on military relief food and the food given by their daughter and son-in-law. If you hire them, I promise that they will work honestly with you, will not have other ideas, and will not cause trouble."
Si Nan originally only wanted to hire two people, but then he changed his mind and realized that she was quite a hands-off person, so it would be a good idea to hire one more person, Sheng Mu.
Since Sheng's mother was tired from washing clothes and shoes for others and could not earn much food, it was better for her to help her take care of the crops on her contracted land. Sheng's mother could also keep an eye on the people working for her and prevent them from making trouble, killing two birds with one stone.
So she nodded and said, "I'll listen to you, Aunt Sheng. Call Sister Wang and the others over, and I'll talk about the remuneration in person. How much is theirs? You can give them a little less than them. Is that okay?"
Mother Sheng had wanted to find a job a long time ago, but due to her health and the persuasion of Sheng Youqing and her brother and sister, she could only take on some work of helping neighbors wash clothes and shoes. Often it was hard work, and some people would not pay her for washing the clothes properly, and some would find fault with her and say that she had washed the clothes badly and asked her to pay for it...
She had encountered so many things that she didn't want to do it anymore. Now she shamelessly recommended herself to Si Nan, who agreed without hesitation. Mother Sheng was so happy, "Xiao Nan, wait a minute. I'll call Sister Wang and her husband over right away. We can talk it over."
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