Chapter 189 A self-sufficient farm with unlimited production capacity
If the proceeds are not much, there is no need to make plans too early. All the proceeds can be put in the shop here and sold slowly. Just think of it as a trick used by Xu Yu to please Sang Zhixia. There is no need to worry about losses.
If the quantity is large, then the idea of moving will be more than that.
Talking about business, Xu Yu and Xu Minghui both stopped their secret quarrels and listened quietly to what Sang Zhixia had to say.
Sang Zhixia didn't notice the undercurrent in the air. After thinking for a moment, she said, "I've roughly estimated it."
"We currently have 236 mu of arable land. Excluding the land used for sorghum and soybeans, 160 mu of it is landed property. At 200 yuan per mu, the total value is probably between 30,000 and 32,000 yuan."
Chen Jingan paused in pouring the tea and looked up in surprise: "Sister-in-law, are you talking about 30,000 kilograms?"
"yes."
Sang Zhixia was not satisfied with the total yield per mu. Frowning slightly, she said, "The grain seeds produced in the greenhouse are too few. After the land was reclaimed, most of the grain seeds used for the cultivated land are still purchased seeds, so the production capacity is very low."
The rice yield per mu is 200 kilograms, which is really very low!
The Xu family paid people to do the entire process of clearing the land and cultivating the land. The total cost of labor was as much as watering the crops. With such a low yield per mu, there was not much profit at all. Sang Zhixia couldn't help sighing when he thought about it.
Chen Jing'an wanted to say that this was already a lot, but what Sang Zhixia said next made his jaw hit the ground.
"Another thirty mu of land is planted with cultivated rice seeds. It is estimated that one mu of land will yield more than 300 kilograms of grain. The actual yield will only be more than the estimate, not less."
Chen Jing'an's heart skipped a beat uncontrollably, and he pursed his lips and said, "Sister-in-law, what do you mean by that? Thirty mu of land can yield nearly ten thousand catties?"
"Are you serious?"
Sang Zhixia didn't understand why he was so surprised, and after a pause, she said, "Of course it's true."
"This number is still low. If everything goes well, the yield per mu of land could reach over 400 yuan by this time next year."
If one mu of land can produce 400 kilograms of pure rice, then 100 mu of land would be worth 40,000 yuan. Just the Xu family's existing arable land alone could produce nearly 100,000 yuan in rice per year...
Chen Jing'an suddenly understood what Xu Yu meant by what he had said to him a long time ago.
He swallowed hard, trying to calm down and said, "Sister-in-law, as far as I know, the average farmer can only produce no more than 200 per mu of land per year. Even in the Shuinuanjiangnan area, where two crops of rice can be grown each year, there has never been such a large amount. Are you sure your estimate is correct?"
Such an astonishing number, can such a small village like Luobei really produce it?
When Chen Jing'an heard this, he knew that he had indeed checked it privately and was considered to be quite knowledgeable.
Sang Zhixia rubbed her fingertips and said, "Different grain varieties have huge differences in production capacity. Does this explain it?"
Chen Jingan nodded seriously.
"Simply put, the grain seeds we use are hybridized and bred by ourselves, and they're not available anywhere else. This is one of our advantages. As you just said, the climate in places like Jiangnan is suitable for growing two rice crops a year. The harsh cold weather of the Northwest can't compare, but the Northwest also has advantages that other places don't have."
“The soil here is good, very good.”
The fertility of the land is also an important factor affecting grain output. It is true that the Northwest is subject to many restrictions of weather, but the fertility of the soil is unmatched by many places.
Moreover, the northwest is vast and sparsely populated.
Sang Zhixia opened up the conversation and simply said, "In places like Jiangnan you mentioned, the good farmland that's good at farming and producing a lot of grain has almost been seized by others early on. It's not easy to rent or buy it, and it's almost impossible to expand the area and increase production. But it's different in the Northwest."
"There are too few people here, but there are a lot of wastelands."
Due to long-standing limitations in regional cognition, people who have lived in the northwest and other places for a long time have not realized the enormous energy contained in the land beneath their feet.
The Northwest has always been famous for its bitter cold and poverty, and people seem to believe that it is difficult for hope to be born in this barren land.
The opposite is true.
In Sang Zhixia's heart, this land covered with ice and snow is a huge treasure that has not been discovered and is waiting to be excavated.
Seeing her rubbing her hands unconsciously, Xu Yu understood her hint and found the paper and pen on the counter and placed them there.
Sang Zhixia didn't think much about it. He spread out a piece of paper on the table and calculated for the others: "There isn't much else in the northwest. The most common land is wasteland that no one cares about. According to government regulations, one ounce of silver is required to pay a farming tax for each acre of land that needs to be reclaimed and deeded."
"Including the cost of hiring someone to open up the wasteland, the cost of cultivating 500 acres of land is no more than 700 taels. However, the total amount of rice that 500 acres of land can produce in two years is at least this much."
Looking at the terrifying numbers she wrote on the paper, Chen Jing'an's fingers holding the teacup trembled silently, and even Xu Minghui's eyes flashed with concentration.
Xu Minghui hesitated and asked, "Sister-in-law, can one acre of land really produce 600 kilograms of grain?"
Sang Zhixia rubbed her wrist and said, "Why not?"
"If you don't believe me, go home and watch the rice being weighed this year. If the harvest from the three acres of land I allocated is less than this, then..."
Sang Zhixia thought it was unnecessary to dig a hole to bury herself, so she decisively sold Xu Yu: "I will feed all the grain harvested from that one acre of land to Xu Yu. Even if he eats one bowl less, it won't count."
Xu Yu had already been shocked by the magnificent scene described by Sang Zhixia. Compared with the shock revealed on the faces of Chen Jingan and Xu Minghui, he was a little calmer at this moment. However, when he heard Sang Zhixia's smooth backhand selling of his own operation, he couldn't help but sneer.
"Zhizhi..."
"Hey, it's just an analogy."
Sang Zhixia winked at him nervously, then laughed to herself, "I'm sure I won't let you eat so much."
Xu Yu held his forehead, smiled and said nothing more.
Chen Jing'an was so excited that he didn't even care about the tea in his cup spilling out. He rubbed his fingers against his chest, took a breath, and said, "According to what my sister-in-law said, there are so many wastelands in the northwest. As long as we reclaim them properly, then we can have as much rice as we want, right?"
Sang Zhixia said with a smile: "You can't say that."
"There's indeed a lot of wasteland that can be reclaimed in the northwest, but there aren't many people. Even if we spend money to hire people, the number of people we can hire is limited."
Without sufficient labor, no matter how much arable land there is, it is just a pie hanging over your neck, and it is not easy to take a bite.
But there is a solution.
Sang Zhixia paused and said, "I've thought about it. I can use the existing arable land as a foundation to open a farm."
Xu Yu narrowed his eyes. "A farm? Appoint a manager to buy servants and let them do the farm work?"
"No."
Sang Zhixia picked up the brush again and lowered her head to write and draw: "The farm I'm talking about may be different from the one you know."
"The farm raises the oxen needed for land reclamation itself, and continuously cultivates wasteland in designated areas. This will expand the arable land area over the long term. In addition to hiring people, the farm can also use a profit-sharing system to attract nearby villagers to join voluntarily."
Xu Minghui asked suspiciously, "Profit sharing system? What does that mean?"
"What it means is that we should gather all the people who are farming with hoes together and have them all plant our land."
As if aware that his statement was a bit too shocking, Sang Zhixia considered it for a moment before saying, "Take Luobei Village as an example. The villagers' annual yield per mu of farmland will not exceed 200."
"But if they plant our land and use the rice seeds we provide, we can share a certain percentage of the harvest as dividends with the villagers who participate in the farming."
"For the same amount of work and the same length of time, the share they receive is definitely greater than what they would have earned if they had put in the effort themselves."
After deducting the share distributed to the villagers, the rest went to the Xu family.
Roughly speaking, this saves the cost of hiring workers and does not delay farming, so the annual income is definitely an astonishing figure.
Chen Jing'an stared at Sang Zhixia's beautiful handwriting, her heart nearly jumping out of her throat. Her voice was hoarse, "Sister-in-law, do you think this profit-sharing system can attract many people?"
Sang Zhixia: "Of course a lot."
"Just think about it, how much can they earn by working hard all year? I'm willing to give them double the rice per acre. If the grain store business goes well, I can even pay for the extra rice. It's a good thing to get both money and rice. There will definitely be many people willing to do it."
As long as you can set an example that people will envy, there will be countless people following suit, and there will be no shortage of people.
The land was divided into sections for each family, and the distribution of income from the land was agreed upon in advance.
Every family that participates in the work is willing to work harder in order to get more benefits from the land each year, and no one will refuse to take advantage of the food and money they get.
Sang Zhixia thought of the golden rice paddies swaying in the wind one day, and said with a smile, "With more land and more people, we don't have to grow rice. We can grow soybeans, sorghum, millet, wheat, anything else."
"Grain can be used to make wine, and the remaining grains can be fed to pigs and chickens. The manure shoveled out from these livestock can be fermented slightly and applied to the fields to become ready-made farmyard manure. If the soil is fertile, the crops grown will definitely be better."
"This is what I mean by a farm, a self-sufficient farm with unlimited production capacity."
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