Chapter 183 Raising pigs on a farm is a big business!
The next day, Qin Xiangxiang went to the textile factory on crutches. Everyone who saw her sincerely offered their condolences to the factory manager.
"Factory manager, what happened to your leg?"
"Factory manager, are you injured in the foot?"
"Factory manager, what should we do?"
...
Qin Xiangxiang was numb to being asked about her "leg" by so many people. After becoming a leader, even the slightest injury would attract a large group of concerned people. She couldn't possibly respond to so many people's inquiries.
"I'm so tired."
Qin Xiangxiang was walking to the office on crutches when a veteran picked her up in a sidecar. "Factory manager, you have a problem with your leg, so please don't make things difficult for yourself. If you have anywhere you want to go, just call us drivers. We're ready to go anytime."
"We guarantee we won't delay your work in the slightest, Factory Director." After saying this, the security guard saluted her.
Qin Xiangxiang: "...Thank you, comrade."
She walked silently into the office, and heard faint whispers of discussion around her: "Director Qin is really something, he still insists on coming to work at the factory even with a broken leg."
"Our factory director, like the Iron Man, is physically disabled but determined, a true model worker!"
Qin Xiangxiang closed her eyes, no longer wanting to say anything more. After finishing her work in the morning, she said at noon that she wanted to lie down in a hospital bed. The factory hospital also supported her, saying, "Factory director, you have health problems, so you should lie in a hospital bed. If you need anything, we medical staff will treat you immediately."
Qin Xiangxiang lay on the spruce bed, breathing in the fresh, natural scent of wood, feeling a sense of peace.
She sighed, "It's better to be a normal person!"
Based on just one day's experience, pretending to be lame was a really terrible idea! She was so stupid to even think of pretending to be lame.
However, since my leg is already twisted, it will take a hundred days to recover from a broken bone, so I need to rest and recuperate properly.
In the afternoon, Assistant He returned from a meeting in the province and conveyed the spirit of the meeting to Qin Xiangxiang.
"Factory director, the higher-ups have instructed us to do a good job in the 'industry, agriculture, commerce, education, and military' program, especially for small, remote factories like ours in the third-tier cities."
"It emphasized self-reliance and self-sufficiency; modern factories should 'focus on manufacturing while also engaging in other businesses'..."
"We must actively improve the lives of our employees, ensure supplies, and develop some agricultural and sideline production, including raising chickens, ducks, pigs, and other sideline production."
...
Ultimately, the goal is to enable small factories in remote, third-tier cities to take care of themselves, support themselves, and absorb as many jobs as possible.
For factories in remote areas, engaging in side businesses is often a last resort. For example, many coal mines and factories are located in remote areas, forming their own small communities. Since the workers need to eat and transportation is inconvenient, they naturally have to grow their own vegetables, raise their own pigs, and some even make their own tofu or run their own mills...
A factory employs so many people, what can it do without side businesses? At the same time, these side businesses can also provide employment for employees' families, as well as many people who are both workers and farmers.
"Workers, farmers, merchants, students, soldiers, our factory has been under construction for two years, and the first task has been completed very well. Now the administrative department in the factory is also managing the canteen quite well... We are going to start our own farm. The higher-ups also want us factories to be self-sufficient and reduce our dependence on external sources."
The factory's administrative department also falls under the logistics department. For example, the canteen, bathhouse, and guesthouse are all managed by the administrative department.
In the 1970s, many factories began exploring various side businesses under the call for "self-reliance and improving employee welfare." Feiyan Textile Factory had gradually gotten on the right track in industrial production, and now it should explore side businesses to improve the welfare of its employees.
Especially in agriculture, this is the simplest and most practical approach, providing benefits for employees.
Factories in megacities like Shanghai don't have land to raise pigs or chickens, but for these small, run-down factories in third-tier cities, clearing land to grow vegetables and raise pigs is incredibly easy.
Assistant He: "This year, we need to put collective pig farming in the factory on the agenda. I have studied the production experience of typical third-line factories in Jiangxi Province. This time, the typical example is a small, remote factory. They started by establishing a factory-affiliated farm in the 1970s. The farm initially had twelve workers, who were working women selected from the families of the employees who knew how to do agricultural production. With simple tools, they began to cultivate vegetables on wasteland not far from the workshop. In that year, they cultivated thirty acres of sloping land, built collective pigsties, and harvested 100,000 catties of vegetables and raised one hundred pigs..."
"These are the specific learning documents and materials. Factory Director, please take a look." After explaining half of it, He Zhu handed the learning materials to Qin Xiangxiang.
Qin Xiangxiang took the materials, but what she was thinking about at that moment wasn't anything else, but raising pigs! Raising pigs! Raising pigs!
Collective pig farming!
The thought of a delicious pork dish energized the salted fish.
Assistant He: "We had some agricultural and livestock farming in our factory before, but it didn't form a farm scale. Now we'll start with a farm, growing vegetables and raising pigs. After we achieve the harvest, we'll develop other integrated industries."
Qin Xiangxiang said, "It means we should first establish affiliated farms, and then develop integrated industries."
"Yes, you can't rush things."
Assistant He nodded: "More and more employees in our factory are getting married. This year we also need to settle a lot of veterans, educated youth, workers and peasants, and high school graduates. But we don't just need to settle these people; we also need to settle their families. These side businesses are also a way to settle employees' families."
At first, their factory had a lot of young, unmarried workers, but young workers all need to get married, and their families also need to be settled. Since the factory couldn't accommodate them all, they naturally chose to have the factory's sideline businesses provide for them.
Qin Xiangxiang said, "Okay, let's grow vegetables and raise pigs! In the first year of starting a farm, we must plan these two things well, especially raising pigs. Once the pigs are raised well, everyone's living standards will improve!"
Assistant He nodded, "But who should we choose to lead the team to raise pigs? I've asked around, and while some of our family members have experience in raising pigs, there are relatively few people with collective management skills, so we don't dare to take charge."
"Factory Director, are there any female family members in the Navy's family compound who could take on the position of 'Pig Farming Commander'? That way, we can solve the pig farming problem and also help secure a place for a military dependent."
At that moment, a name popped into Qin Xiangxiang's mind, and she replied, "I'll decide on the candidate. I'll go back and ask."
She thought of Zhuang Xiaoman; this guy must be quite talented at raising pigs. She wondered if she would be willing to do it.
Qin Xiangxiang is very dedicated to the pig farming business. While other factories raise 100 pigs in their first year, they raise 200. At the end of the year, they slaughter the pigs and make them into cured meat... That's what celebrating the festival is all about.
Qin Xiangxiang: "I need to carefully study how to raise pigs scientifically!"
Qin Xiangxiang vaguely remembered that in her dream, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially after the fertilizer production line was completed, the livestock industry experienced a boom, and there seemed to be some scientific pig farming methods.
"Our factory manager is such a model worker!" Yang Zhixia and the others came over for a small meeting and were shocked to hear Qin Xiangxiang's determination to raise pigs well.
"Even with leg problems, Factory Director Qin still doesn't forget to keep production under control!"
"The factory manager cares deeply about the factory and its employees!"
"It's a great thing that the factory is starting a farm!"
After a meeting, Qin Xiangxiang and others decided to establish the "May 7th Farm" affiliated to Feiyan Textile Factory and appoint a farm director. At that time, most state-owned factories or other enterprises' affiliated farms were called "May 7th Farms," and this name was generally safe to use.
"In response to the call, we established the May 7th Farm."
"Grow vegetables! Raise chickens! Raise ducks! Raise pigs!"
...
After returning to the family compound, Qin Xiangxiang immediately went to find Zhuang Xiaoman and talked to her about appointing her as the temporary farm director.
Zhuang Xiaoman was stunned: "The farm director? You want me?"
Qin Xiangxiang: "I believe in your abilities."
"Xiao Qin, to be honest, I might not have experience raising people, but I have a lot of experience raising pigs." Zhuang Xiaoman originally wanted to be modest, but when it came to raising pigs, it was hard not to be confident. "When I first came to the family compound, everyone said I raised myself like a pig."
"I eat what pigs eat, so I have a lot to say about pig feed."
Qin Xiangxiang: "..."
Factory Director Qin couldn't help but sigh inwardly: everyone has their own expertise.
Qin Xiangxiang: "Our No. 57 Farm will raise at least 100 pigs this year."
Zhuang Xiaoman was shocked: "Wow!"
"Aside from those who raise pigs on the black market, I've never seen so many pigs raised before."
Qin Xiangxiang said, "You should speak more quietly!" It seems that Zhuang Xiaoman has done a lot of research on various types of pork.
It's roughly the mid-1970s now. Most people aren't really starving. At least there's plenty of potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, and coarse grains. Corn and potatoes are in the north, and sweet potatoes are in the south. The yield of sweet potatoes is really high! It's just that eating too much causes flatulence and heartburn.
These surplus sweet potatoes are enough to feed pigs, which has led to the emergence of black market pig farms where pigs are secretly raised and the pork circulates on the black market without requiring coupons.
These private pig farms were all officially recognized as pig farms after seven or eight years; many pig farms were also affiliated with state-owned enterprises and collective communes.
Pigs, like humans, are omnivores. What humans can eat, pigs can eat too, and they don't have to worry about losing hair from eating too much salt. Even more terrifying is that in rural areas, pigs are the best way to "dispose of a body." If someone is killed, the body can be handed over to a pig to dispose of. Some missing persons may end up in a pig's stomach.
"Zhuang Xiaoman, if you're willing to do it, then the job of farm manager is yours! I believe you can definitely raise pigs well."
Zhuang Xiaoman nodded, and she stopped hesitating. She had been envious of others who went to work as female workers in textile factories, but she felt that she couldn't do factory assembly line work, and that she was too rough in her work to do delicate textile work.
She may not be good at other things, but she's an expert at using this kind of vegetable to feed pigs.
Zhuang Xiaoman sighed, "I never thought there could be a pig farming director these days! It seems that if you do this job well, you can become a director of anything."
Qin thought for a moment: "You're underestimating yourself. Even in the company, if a soldier raises a pig well, he can get a third-class merit!"
"Raising pigs is a big business!"
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