Chapter 278 Industrial Innovation (Big Cup)
Guizhou Province, Hucheng.
It is also a city known as the sugar capital.
The Spring Festival is approaching, and the subsidiary set up by Hailufeng Company in the city is not idle.
Around August last year, Hailufeng Company's Agricultural Planting Division established a wholly-owned subsidiary: Hucheng Sugar Company.
The company's headquarters is located in Daxin County.
As a county in Hucheng area with a sugar cane planting area of more than 500,000 mu, the sugar cane planting area here is mainly based on the sloped sugar cane planting.
Friends who have planted the land know that there are obvious differences in the labor intensity required to achieve the same labor results in arable land between mountains and plains.
The cultivated land in the mountains often requires more labor intensity, and there are different degrees of restrictions on the investment in machinery and equipment.
However, at this time, the sloped sugarcane fields of many villagers near Longmen Township, Daxin County had very obvious changes.
More than a dozen villagers were chatting and looking forward to it.
"Brother Dong, when will the sugar-collecting team come?"
A middle-aged man gnawing sugarcane spit out a mouthful of sugarcane bagasse: "What's the hurry? Will Hailufeng Company still lie to you?"
A young man wearing a baseball cap smiled dryly and said, "Is the Chinese New Year coming soon? The family is waiting to use money."
The middle-aged man gestured with the sugar cane on his hands: "Haha, what are you thinking? Your father said that he would give the money to him. If you go gamble again during the Chinese New Year, you will break your legs."
"Uh..." The young man looked embarrassed.
"That's right, Bozai, your father is talking. Whoever dares to bet with you in the village will go to the door of his house to throw shit."
"Don't come!"
"Damn! The old man really said that?" The young man with a cap looked embarrassed.
Suddenly, a convoy drove slowly in the distance.
"Here you come!"
"Who is here?"
"The sugar-collecting team is here."
After a while, the convoy arrived at the roadside not far away from everyone, and several employees of the acquisition team walked down from one of the pickup trucks.
The middle-aged man who was gnawing sugarcane just now ran over: "Hello, is it Captain Li?"
"I am Li Xiao. I will be responsible for the purchase of sugar liquid in this area for about half a year. Add WeChat." Li Xiao, the captain of the acquisition team, took out his business card and handed it to everyone.
After a while, everyone added WeChat.
Of course, this WeChat is a work number, and the ownership belongs to the company's network business department. Hailufeng Company has strict regulations, that is, employees are not allowed to use private numbers to add customers or partners to avoid forming a monopoly in communication channels. At the same time, it also facilitates the company to adjust the work area and investigate the work content of employees.
After the middle-aged man added WeChat, he wiped his hands: "Captain Li, I am Fang Jianqiang, just call me Aqiang, when will we start collecting?"
"Start now." Li Xiao had no intention of greetings and asked everyone to start work.
The tiny plastic hose was pulled into the wood cane forest, and the interface was directly buckled under the main rod of the wood cane in advance, about 20 cm away from the ground. This is also the lower limit of the sugar solution. If the sugar solution in the wood cane is evacuated, the disease resistance and drought resistance of the wood cane will decrease.
The planting density of wood cane is sparse than that of ordinary sugar cane, but its stems are much larger than ordinary sugar cane, and it looks like a low giant dragon bamboo.
After a while, the staff who had connected the pipeline held the intercom and said, "Captain, the first piece has been picked up."
"Received."
Li Xiao turned his head and shouted, "Start to draw sugar liquid."
"Okay." Another employee pressed the switch of the pumping equipment, and a large amount of translucent sugar liquid was continuously pumped out of the pipeline. Due to the terrain, it was effortless to pump.
The sugar liquid was drawn into a truck bucket. The food-grade transformation was carried out in advance. After a while, 100 kilograms of sugar liquid were pulled out and filled with the first truck bucket. The outlet was then transferred to the next truck bucket.
The staff put a special water remover into the sugar liquid in the first car bucket. After starting the switch, the sugar liquid level dropped rapidly.
Soon the saturated sugar crystal condensed at the bottom of the car bucket. As the last drop of water was drained, the sugar cubes with a dryness of about 99% had already appeared at the bottom.
The staff lifted the water remover.
Li Xiao pressed the control switch of the car bucket, and the car bucket immediately tilted the opening downward. A stainless steel iron bucket had been placed on the side. He picked up the sand shovel and inserted it into the bottom of the car bucket. Pieces of cracked translucent light yellow candy fell down and fell into the stainless steel iron bucket.
The owner of the cane field is an old man holding a pipe: "Huh... is this just rock candy?"
Fang Jianqiang picked up a piece from the stainless steel iron bucket, put it in his mouth and took it: "It's rock candy, or old rock candy."
Li Xiao also took a piece and put it in his mouth and chewed it. "Now it is old rock sugar, with a lot of impurities left by sugar cane. After we take it back to the factory, we will also need to perform secondary decomposition and granulation."
"Huh...Captain Li, how much pounds does this barrel?" The old man stared at his own candy.
An employee moved the stainless steel barrel to an electronic scale and looked at the display: "After peeling, it was 25.3 kg, which was 50.6 catties."
The old man muttered to himself with concern: "I don't know how many kilograms of candy the old man has in these two acres of wooden cane."
"Don't worry, Uncle Kuan, I guess I can pay two or three hundred kilograms." Fang Jianqiang said with a smile.
After a while, the old man's two acres of wood cane were pumped, and the final cube of japonica was 335.7 kilograms.
"Old man, your sugar has been collected, 671.4 kilograms, per kilogram, one dollar per kilogram." Li Xiao took the data into it: "Isn't it wrong?"
"No!" the financial auditor nodded.
Then an automatic printing device inside the back of the pickup truck printed out the commercial ticket, and then the financial auditor and Li Xiao confirmed and stamped the signature seal.
Li Xiao handed the commercial ticket to Fang Dakuan: "Old man put it away, it will be troublesome if it is dropped."
"Captain Li, how do you get this money?" Fang Dakuan was a little confused.
Li Xiao explained: "It's very simple. You can go directly to the Hucheng Sugar Industry in the county tomorrow. When you get there, you can just ask the guard directly. Someone will do it for you at that time."
"Okay." Fang Dakuan carefully put the commercial ticket into the lining pocket of his clothes, and then zipped the pocket.
Although only one pound of japonica is only one dollar, no one has the idea of starting a price, because Hucheng Sugar Industry not only signed a purchase contract with them, but also held many seminars in several nearby villages, just to tell local villagers not to fantasize that the price of japonica will increase in the future.
Because the current domestic price of sucrose is inflated.
Currently, the domestic sugar price is 6,200 yuan per ton, while the international sugar price is 3,900 yuan per ton. The price difference between the two is about 2,300 yuan.
Even with freight and tariffs, the price of imported raw sugar is still much lower than that of domestic sugar factories.
If Hucheng Sugar Industry wants to keep prices in line with the international market, it must control the purchase price of choy sugar and control it to around 2,000 yuan per ton, which is a relatively reasonable purchase price.
Adding costs such as transportation, manpower, equipment, sales and energy consumption, using new processes can save a little, but these costs still cost about 1,000 yuan per ton of white sugar.
In this way, the total cost per ton of white sugar is about 3,000 yuan. If the price of white sugar in the international market is fully connected, you can earn 900 yuan per ton.
The previous domestic production cost of white sugar was obviously relatively high, because its raw material procurement cost made it difficult for the entire sugar production industry to enter a virtuous cycle.
Previously, the cost of sugarcane raw materials needed to be paid for every ton of white sugar produced in China was about 4,000 yuan. Adding 1,000 yuan to other costs, the cost was directly reduced to 5,000 yuan.
Moreover, there is another fatal problem for domestic sugar factories, which is seasonal production and there is no way to start construction throughout the year. This will cause sugar factories to need to add losses in other seasons to the sugar-pressing season, which will further increase to about 5,900 to 6,100 yuan per ton.
In addition, a special subsidy policy has been set up in China, requiring secondary settlement linkage. When the sales price of sugar exceeds 6,300 yuan per ton, sugar farmers can obtain linkage supplementary prices, which further increases the operating costs of sugar factories.
It would be strange if the domestic sugar industry can make a profit under the attack from the front and back.
If Hailufeng Company wants to change this situation, it must lower the purchase price of sugar in order to revitalize the entire sugar production industry.
Many people may think that two acres of wood cane only cost more than 600 yuan, which is really too little, but don’t forget that this is the monthly income.
Moreover, the sugar liquid production capacity of wood cane will increase year by year. Starting from the fourth year, the yield per mu of these wood cane can reach 450 kilograms of jelly sugar per month, that is, the monthly income per mu is about 900 yuan, and the annual income can reach about 10,800 yuan.
Taking the village where sugar liquid is currently harvesting as an example, the planting area of sugar farmers in this village is generally about five to fifteen acres, some can reach dozens of acres, and a small part can reach hundreds of acres.
Similar to Fang Dakuan's planting and planting two acres, it is a relatively rare situation. The main reason is that the old man is only one, and he also planted two acres in previous years, so he couldn't take care of it if he had too much.
Fang Jianqiang's family has 12 acres of wood cane forest, and this time he harvested nearly 4,000 yuan.
Seeing that everyone else had received several thousand, Fang Dakuan asked quickly, "Captain Li, I want to plant a few acres, I don't know if it's okay?"
Li Xiao did not give a clear reply: "When you go to get money tomorrow, you can consult on this matter. There is a special office there to be responsible for planting quotas."
"Uncle Kuan, do you want to plant more? Are you busy?" a young man joked.
Fang Dakuan waved his hand and said, "Go away... I'm in good health. It's just like this kind of forest. If I were younger, I could do ten acres per person."
In fact, he was helpless. He was now over 60 years old, but the money he saved over the years was only more than 300,000 yuan. He felt that this money might not be enough for his retirement, so he planned to open a few more acres of mountain land to grow wood cane.
After all, it has been much easier for him to manage these wooden cane forests in the past five months than before. Now he does not need to cut sugarcane or carry sugarcane. The acquisition team comes directly to harvest, and they can still persist in the daily management work.
And if you really can't do it, at most you can rent the Mucan Forest to other people in the village. At that time, you can collect two or three hundred yuan per acre per month, which is a way out. In this village, there are five acquisition working groups that have completed the harvesting work. During this period, the truck responsible for transporting chorizo cane has been traveled several times in a row, sending 537 tons of chorizo cane to the Daxin County Sugar Factory of Hucheng Sugar Industry.
Currently, of the 530,000 mu of sugarcane fields in Daxin County, about 210,000 mu have been converted into wood cane, and the rest are still planting traditional sugar cane.
However, as January began, Hucheng Sugar Industry continued to harvest sugar liquid, and many sugar farmers who plant traditional sugar cane were also shocked.
Fang Jianqiang just returned home.
A middle-aged man with one finger missing suddenly bounced up from his sofa: "Daqiang, how much did sugar liquid sell for today?"
Fang Jianqiang, who had just opened the door, was startled: "Damn! You scared me to death!"
"When did you become so timid?"
"Tell me quickly if you have something to say, and let me freeze if you have farts." Fang Jianqiang picked up the teapot with mango leaves and took a few sips.
The middle-aged man rubbed his hands with a fucked smile on his face: "Hehe, Daqiang, how much did he sell it today? Tell me about it to my brother."
Fang Jianqiang looked impatient: "Your brother has planted wooden cane too, won't you ask him?"
"Daqiang, don't mention him, you can enjoy me, right? You don't know what I have to do with him." When talking about his elder brother, the middle-aged man suddenly looked unhappy.
"Haha." Putting down the teapot, Fang Jianqiang said, "One acre costs about 300 yuan. If you want to plant it, hurry up and go to the county's Hucheng sugar industry to register. If you don't plant it, you will lose it."
"It's only more than three hundred yuan? Is this too little?"
"I said Erdou, you disliked before you even started planting it?" Fang Jianqiang looked speechless.
Fang Shuangde said his question: "Didn't it say that one acre can charge eight or nine hundred yuan?"
Hearing this question, Fang Jianqiang was speechless: "Haha, when you were studying, you wouldn't have to sleep in class, but you listened to half of the symposium. People said it clearly. It was the fourth year that it was 800 to 900 yuan per month, and it also required reasonable care. If you still have this attitude, I advise you not to go there."
"No! Daqiang, I really want to plant it. Cutting sugarcane every year is too tiring. If it weren't for the low purchase price they gave, I would have planted it long ago." Fang Shuangde exonerated himself.
"It's still low? Are you thinking about the nonsense? It's already good for them to give one dollar per pound. You think about it with your own mind. In the future, we grow this kind of wooden cane in the entire Hucheng. Do you know how much sugar will be collected in a year?"
"How many?"
"If it reaches its peak, 20 million tons of sugar can be produced in about a year."
"What is 20 million tons?"
"Do you know how much sugar our country produces last year?"
"I don't know." Fang Shuangde looked confused.
"About 9 million tons."
"Gulu..." Fang Shuangde subconsciously swallowed his saliva.
"Now I know why one dollar per pound is a fair price? You will have to plant it if you don't plant it in the future, and you will still plant traditional sugarcane? Do you think the sugar factory is willing to collect it?"
In this case, the entire industry is forcing sugarcane farmers to eliminate traditional sugarcane. Unless it is planted as fruit cane, there is no market at all.
After all, other sugar factories are not stupid, and even the officials cannot resist this trend.
Nowadays, the raw material cost per ton of sucrose is 4,000 yuan. The raw material cost per ton of sucrose is made of sugar using wood cane sugar liquid, and the raw material cost per ton of sucrose is only 2,000 yuan.
Any sugar company with a normal mind knows which one to choose.
Since this technological innovation has appeared in China, it is impossible for the official to say that this wood cane sugar liquid is too cheap and forcefully set a purchase guide price.
Because even if you use a relatively high acquisition guide price now, you can't stand it for a few years.
As the area of wood cane planting in Guizhou and Lingnan continues to expand, it will soon break through the domestic demand ceiling and then force the market to lower prices.
You should know that the three sugar subsidiaries of Hailufeng Company have promoted the planting of 840,000 mu of wood cane on the Leizhou Peninsula in Guizhou and Lingnan.
Even if this year is the first year of harvest, the average yield per mu is only about 168 kilograms per month, which is also a very terrible number.
This means that Hailufeng Company's sugar production capacity this year will reach 1.7 million tons, equivalent to about 18.9% of the national production capacity last year.
And by looking at the reactions of the sugarcane farmers who have grown wood cane in Daxin County, you will know that they all hope to expand the planting area.
Even if Hailufeng Company controls planting quotas and limits the planting area to about 3 million mu, it will have a production capacity of nearly 15 million tons of sugar every year when it reaches its peak production period.
This production capacity is basically the same as the current annual consumption of sucrose in China.
Once the domestic market is saturated and the production costs drop, the price of sucrose will inevitably be able to align with the international market.
Moreover, as domestic sucrose production capacity soars, the already sluggish sucrose price in the international market will further fall. After all, the domestic will import about 6 million tons of sucrose less. This is a very terrible surplus and is not a production capacity that other regions can easily absorb.
In fact, the futures trading price of international sugar began to continue to fall more than half a year ago, but because wood cane did not really produce sugar on a large scale, the physical market did not perform directly.
Now the international sugar futures trading price in January plummeted instantly, reaching the lowest level in recent decades. The price per ton of sugar in the futures market is currently $423, equivalent to 3,045 Huayuan.
Of course, this sudden plunge is not the real transaction price of the physical market.
The market will adjust itself, eliminate part of the excess sugarcane planting area, and finally restore it to a relatively reasonable price again.
However, this price will take one or two years of market turmoil before it can be initially adjusted.
Domestic large sugar factories including East Asia Sugar Industry, Nanhua Sugar Industry, Guizhou Sugar Industry, Xianggui Sugar Industry and other major domestic sugar factories have been asked to change from last year to plant wood cane or other cash crops as soon as possible.
Because the current quota for wood cane planting given by Hailufeng Company is 3.5 million mu.
These sugar factories have long had enough of the days of continuous losses. They want to change the ecology of the entire sugar industry through wooden cane and achieve a relatively good profit.
Sugar farmers in various places have also begun to differentiate, and some have tried every means to change from wood cane, some have planted fruit sugar cane, and some have planted other economic crops.
For example, the sugarcane farmers in Yunnan Province have changed all the remaining ones to other cash crops except for the ones that plant fruit sugarcane.
The official has also begun to guide planting to avoid sugarcane farmers changing to plant rubber trees, because rubber trees are also declining. Hailufeng Company's rubber grass planting in the south of the desert will reach about 500,000 mu this year.
Planting rubber trees is definitely a dead end now. Before the rubber trees have entered the rubber cutting period, they will encounter large-scale mass-produced rubber grass, and the rubber tree industry will be crushed instantly.
Therefore, the cash crops that have been converted to this time are mainly concentrated in cash crops that were rarely planted in China, such as coffee, cocoa, mangosteen, cashew nuts, etc.
Especially in the places where rubber trees were planted in the past, it is likely that cocoa and cashew nuts would be planted in the future.
There is no way, industrial upgrading is so cruel.
At the same time, the official has also begun to gradually expand nature reserves in various places, abandoning some orchards that are relatively fragile or close to nature reserves.
Overall, although this industrial upgrading will cause some farmers to be unemployed, the newly added industries can afford this part of the excess labor force.
After all, as the country begins to quickly enter the aging and low birth rate, it is inevitable that the reduction of rural labor force will be reduced.
This time, some remote rural areas were directly listed as nature reserves, which on the one hand alleviated environmental pressure and on the other hand achieved re-regulation of labor.
After all, using less arable land and manpower is also an acceptable result when internal agricultural product demand can be guaranteed.
The harm of the two is the same, and the disadvantage is the least.
Various adjustments to agriculture are already underway, almost unstoppable pace.
This technological innovation initiated by Hailufeng Company has begun to fully affect all parts of the country and even the world.
It even reached the pace of production relations that needed to be adjusted.
Now all parts of Southeast Asia are silent.
Because they found that in recent years, Cyris has made rapid progress and has been developing in all aspects, and many of them have changed drastically.
They thought that the tropical fruit industry, which was guaranteed to be able to harvest from drought and flood, was almost in trouble overnight. As long as Cyris was willing, he could destroy any of their fruit industry at any time.
Even if they are maintaining relatively restrained production now, it has made them very uncomfortable.
When the world's largest industrial system is integrated with the world's largest agricultural system, the whole world will be trembling.
Moreover, the world's largest agricultural system also solves the needs of some mining industries, such as steel, aluminum alloy, copper, rubber, plastics, oil, natural gas, and coal, which are all substitutes derived from the agricultural system.
The only remaining industries in Europe and the United States are the electronics industry, software industry, precision instrument industry, and medical industry.
Other industries are either crushed or divided.
Even the medical and software industries in Europe and the United States are in a precarious situation.
For example, Hailufeng Company's new antibiotics and Yulin protein; medical nanosensors and nanoscalpels jointly developed by Hailufeng Company and Wudaokou University; and serum rice that has begun to be mass-produced in China. These achievements are constantly emerging in the medical field.
In terms of the software industry, although China is a bit behind in some professional software, it does not mean that it is not able to fight back. At least there are alternative software products.
The only difficult industries are probably the only ones that are precision instruments and semiconductors.
(This chapter ends)