Chapter 298 Rise Up
Hucheng, Guangxi Province.

Affected by the South American leaf blight, many sugarcane growers are also worried.

Fortunately, Hailufeng Company responded quickly. The company contacted COFCO Group and other companies that had farm investments in South America and found that although some varieties of sugarcane in South America would be infected by the fungus, the infection rate was about 3% to 5%, and Bordeaux mixture could be used to contain it.

Jiang Miao also used the fungus to try to infect sugarcane in the laboratory of Shanmei, and found that the probability of infection was even smaller, about 0.71% to 0.86%.

Of course, Bordeaux mixture can only initially inhibit the yellow fungus. Farms in South America have already tried it and found that Bordeaux mixture must be combined with low temperatures to minimize the spread of the yellow fungus.

In humid and hot areas like Brazil, due to the high temperature and heavy rainfall all year round, the effect of Bordeaux mixture sprayed will be easily washed away if it rains.

Therefore, in climate zones such as tropical rainforests, tropical monsoon forests, tropical savannas, and subtropical monsoons, the spread of the fungus will become difficult to suppress.

The top priority now is to develop new varieties that are resistant to leaf blight.

Although low temperatures can suppress the spread of Acanthophoria graminearum, the problem is that crops cannot grow in low temperature environments.

Especially in the monsoon climate zones around the world, rain and heat basically occur at the same time. Once high temperatures and heavy rains occur, leaf blight will break out on a large scale, unless Bordeaux liquid is sprayed immediately after the rain, and the rainfall time must not be long, to ensure that the reproduction of the yellow fungus is effectively suppressed.

If we encounter a plum rain season similar to that in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River plain, as long as the plum rain lasts for more than a week, the fungus will have entered the roots of crops such as rice, and there will be basically no way to save them.

Currently, a lot of sugarcane has been planted in Guangxi Province. Therefore, when farmers heard that sugarcane has better resistance to leaf blight, their enthusiasm for planting became even higher.

The cumulative sugarcane planting area in Guangxi Province officially exceeded 1200 million mu in early May. It is estimated that after all the sugarcane trees enter the harvesting stage, about 180 million tons of sugarcane can be produced every month in the first year, and about 540 million tons of sugarcane can be produced every month in the fourth year.

Therefore, even though other farmers are enthusiastic, Hailufeng Company has suspended planting promotion.

After all, the per-acre yield of these sugarcane trees will increase year by year. When 1200 million acres of sugarcane trees reach their peak, they can produce about 6000 million tons of sugar every year.

You should know that the current global annual production of white sugar is approximately between 1.7 million and 1.9 million tons.

In other words, Guangxi Province alone will be able to produce about one-third of the world’s white sugar every year.

You should know that the domestic sugarcane planting area during its peak period was about 2400 million mu per year, and now it is about 1800 million mu.

Except for a small amount of fruit sugarcane, the vast majority of the rest is sugarcane, which covers more than 1700 million acres and will all be converted to wood sugarcane this year.

It’s terrible to think about it.

One country produces nearly half of the world’s white sugar.

Therefore, Hailufeng Guangxi Branch has begun to suppress the domestic sugarcane planting area and develop polylactic acid plastic materials with syrup as raw material.

After all, the country’s annual maximum consumption of white sugar is 3000 million tons. If the use is not expanded, the white sugar production capacity will become a burden.

The sugarcane cola that Hucheng Sugar Industry developed last year and the polylactic acid plastic research and development team borrowed from the Mo’nan branch in March have developed a relatively good conversion technology. Currently, they can produce about 1.62 ton of polylactic acid plastic from 1 tons of white sugar. The future goal is to make 1.5 ton of polylactic acid plastic from 1 tons of white sugar.

…

“Fellow villagers, we are the project promotion team of Hailufeng Company. Are you interested in planting cassava?”

In Hucheng District, a small town with a relatively large plain area, several agricultural project promotion teams from Hailufeng Company are promoting cassava planting in a village.

A middle-aged farmer fanned himself with a straw hat, looking a little confused: “Cassava? If we grow it, will your company harvest it?”

If other companies come to promote cassava planting, these villagers probably won’t believe it too much. Although the price of yellow-heart cassava can reach about 2000 to 3000 yuan per ton, the white-heart cassava with higher yield only costs 600 to 1000 yuan per ton.

Guangxi Province is currently the province with the largest cassava planting area in the country, accounting for about half of the country’s cassava planting area, approximately 200 million acres.

The reason why cassava cultivation is not popular in China is that, on the one hand, there are not many people who consume it, and on the other hand, cassava flour can only be used as a supplementary ingredient or pearls for bubble tea, etc., and it is not as widely used as wheat flour and corn flour.

“Of course, our company guarantees the purchase. The price depends on the starch content. Fresh cassava with 30% starch content costs about 1000 yuan per ton.”

The other old farmer did not refute immediately, but asked: “Young man, how much can the varieties promoted by your company achieve per mu in ordinary land?”

Team leader Zhang Wentian took out a stack of pamphlets from his messenger bag and distributed them to the surrounding farmers while explaining, “We currently grow three varieties of cassava, namely rice cassava, wheat cassava, and flour cassava. You can take a look at the introductions above. Next, I will briefly introduce them to you.”

All the farmers were given the pamphlet.

Someone lowered his head and looked through it.

Some people looked at Zhang Wentian and others curiously.

Zhang Wentian immediately brought Jiang Miao out to show off: “Rice cassava is our boss, and it is also a new variety cultivated by Academician Jiang Miao. The characteristic of this variety is that its starch structure is similar to that of rice, with a similarity of about 90%. In other words, this kind of cassava can be used to make rice noodles.”

“Oh really?”

“Old Liu, does Academician Jiang really need to lie to you?”

“No no.”

“Since it was developed by Academician Jiang, we can definitely trust it.”

Jiang Miao’s halo is so dazzling that people subconsciously believe it, especially these farmers with less knowledge, they really believe it.

This is also the reason why Zhang Wentian brought Jiang Miao up at the beginning. Many people are superstitious about authority, especially when this authority has not yet encountered any major problems, it can basically suppress a lot of unnecessary troubles.

“By the way, Team Leader Zhang, what is the yield of this cassava? Does it need to be soaked in water?”

Zhang Wentian shook his head: “No need, although this rice cassava is poisonous, the toxic components will automatically decompose when the cassava matures. And how to judge whether the cassava is mature is very simple. As long as you see the cassava leaves begin to fall, it proves that the toxins in the rice cassava root tubers have been decomposed.”

“Where’s the yield?”

“And how long will it take to plant?”

“In terms of yield, our experimental field simulating ordinary farmland has an annual yield of about 5 tons per mu. The planting period of rice cassava is about 9 months, and the starch content is about 33%.”

Everyone started discussing in low voices.

Many people have already been tempted.

However, they continued to listen to Zhang Wentian introduce other varieties.

“The situation with wheat cassava is similar to that with rice cassava, in that the starch structure is highly similar to that of wheat, and the other properties are similar.”

“The last variety is powdered cassava. This variety is quite special. It still has the original cassava starch structure, but the starch content is about 42%, and the yield per mu can reach about 6 tons. The growth cycle is 12 months.” After listening to the simple introduction, everyone was either calculating the benefits of planting in their hearts, or discussing it with their close friends and relatives.

People are more interested in wheat cassava and rice cassava. Although the yield per mu is lower than that of flour cassava, the former two can be made into rice flour and wheat flour, which suddenly increases their uses a lot.

Obviously these farmers are short-sighted, but that doesn’t mean they are ignorant of current affairs.

You have to know that the old men and farmers in the country are all experienced in politics on the keyboard. When it comes to various current affairs news, they can talk about it for days and nights without repeating the same thing.

Therefore, many people know that the leaf blight in South America will affect the cultivation of wheat, rice and corn.

In order to continue to happily eat snail noodles, they think rice cassava has great potential.

After all, the starch content of rice cassava is about 33%, plus the yield is about 5 tons per mu, which means that one mu of rice cassava can produce about 1.7 tons of rice noodles, which is much better than rice.

Among the current rice varieties, the “Liliangyou 8022” variety has the highest yield per mu, with an average yield of 1251.5 kilograms per mu, making it the domestic hybrid rice variety with the highest yield per mu in a single season.

The starch content of dry rice is about 70%.

This means that one acre of hybrid rice can only produce 875 kilograms of rice noodles at most. Even if it is planted twice a year, it can barely reach 1750 kilograms of rice noodles.

Among other rice varieties in the country, the average yield per mu is only 800 to 1000 kilograms. Obviously, the overall yield per mu is lower than that of rice and cassava.

What’s more, rice cassava is drought-resistant, barren-resistant, disease-resistant, and has low management costs. In addition, the current aggressive leaf blight has no lethal effect on cassava.

Naturally, many farmers are excited.

Zhang Wentian brought up another matter: “Everyone, for the convenience of harvesting, our company is currently only promoting the planting of rice cassava and flour cassava in Guangxi Province, and these two varieties are divided into different areas. Each township can only plant one variety. Your village is currently in the planned planting area for rice cassava, so you can only choose rice cassava.”

“I see.”

“That’s right. If we plant them randomly, we won’t be able to tell the difference when to harvest, which will be troublesome.”

“Team Leader Zhang, can we get the root seedlings now?”

Zhang Wentian nodded: “Of course, folks who want to plant, come here to register.”

Soon, dozens of farmers signed planting agreements with Zhang Wentian’s team.

In Guangxi Province, dozens of groups are busy day and night in various towns and villages to promote the planting of new cassava varieties.

In addition, there are relevant extension teams in Lingnan, Qiongzhou, Fujian Province and Yunnan Province to promote cassava planting.

Although these new varieties have only been trial-planted in Hailufeng Company’s experimental farm, with Jiang Miao’s golden signboard, it is still very easy to promote them.

Especially in areas such as Qiongzhou, Lingnan, and Guangxi Province, there are a large number of growers and breeders who have cooperated with Hailufeng Company and have gained considerable profits. Hailufeng Company has a very strong mass base in the local area, and it is relatively easy to promote new varieties.

As a traditional rice-eating area, South China inevitably experienced a rice buying spree due to the impact of the South American leaf blight.

The promotion of rice and cassava planting is to cope with possible rice shortages in the future.

Even if a new variety of rice resistant to leaf blight is successfully developed, the rice cassava, wheat cassava and flour cassava grown in South China will not actually collapse.

Because food prices in the international market are soaring, the West Asian and North African countries that signed long-term procurement agreements with China in March feel that they are extremely lucky.

Some countries even feel like they have been on the brink of death.

For example, if Egypt follows the international market food prices in May, it will have to pay at least 2.5 times more to be able to buy similar amounts of food.

As for whether Seris’s companies will breach the contract, more than a dozen companies, including the Egyptian Grain Trading Company, feel that this is unlikely, mainly because Seris has a very good credit in this regard.

Although it seems that these regions have gained a great advantage, the country does not pay too much attention to it, mainly because the country now has the confidence to do so.

Previously, people were worried that excessive food production would lead to a collapse in global food prices. Now, due to the double blow of abnormal climate and South American leaf blight, the global food supply has begun to show a situation of supply exceeding demand.

Therefore, domestic production can be relaxed.

It can even use low-priced grain to achieve previously difficult settlement in Chinese yuan, while expanding its mining layout around the world.

At the same time, cassava was cultivated on a large scale.

Hailufeng Company is also planning to develop artificial rice technology from cassava starch and is preparing to launch cassava rice products similar to potato rice.

Qiongzhou and Yunnan Province have also started a new round of agricultural structural adjustment.

The agricultural structure adjusted this time is mainly the natural rubber industry. With the continuous expansion of the rubber grass production capacity of Hailufeng Company in Monan and other places, the strategic value of rubber trees in Qiongzhou and southern Yunnan will inevitably decline.

Therefore, in order to avoid too much loss in these rubber plantations, the two places began to approve the felling of some old rubber trees, and then convert these rubber plantations into cassava plantations and cane plantations.

The rubber trees in Qiongzhou have been mainly replaced with sugarcane because the local area plans to build a number of sucrose polylactic acid plastic production bases.

The rubber trees in southern Yunnan have been mainly replaced by cocoa trees and cassava.

In South China, a large number of rice fields where water supply is difficult to obtain have been gradually converted to cassava cultivation.

In this way, the three new staple food systems of cassava in the south, soybeans in the north, and potatoes in the west were formed.

If the South American leaf blight spreads to China again this year, the planting areas of the three new staple foods will be further expanded to avoid food supply problems.

In fact, the country’s grain reserves are still very large. In order to cope with the increased inventory, a large number of wheat and corn stocks have been sold to the international market.

Of course, domestic grain sales are not entirely utilitarian, but especially for some regions that are willing to fully open up the market and allow Seris companies to open mines, it is basically half-sold and half-given away.

Although it is half-sold and half-given away, the price is actually not too low, and there is a special limit. It is not allowed to resell in areas where the grain is low-priced. If it is resold in violation of the regulations, it will be blacklisted.

Now there is no region in the international market with lower food prices than in Ceres. Faced with such terms, if you do not accept them, you will have no choice but to buy food at high prices.

With a price difference of one or two times, no grain importing country is willing to offend Serbia.

Forces such as America and Lucia, which had previously relied on food to influence all parts of the world, chose to retreat back to their homeland this time because they did not dare to gamble. Now the food supply is so tight, if they lose the bet, it will not only be a loss of money, but an instant internal explosion.

(End of this chapter)