Chapter 2 Soybean Crisis
The first thing Guo Yang thought of was that on January 1 this year, China officially joined the WTO.
Then the next year, the soybean crisis broke out in China.
As a major grower, Guo Yang was once promoted by the agricultural department to grow soybeans.
At the same time, because Guo Yang is used to hedging in the futures market, he also has a relatively clear understanding of the trends of cotton, corn, soybean and other futures in more than ten years.
Guo Yang has seen videos about this ‘soybean crisis’ on Xiaopo.com many times.
To this end, he also went to learn about the development history of soybeans in China.
Before 1995, China had been a net exporter of soybeans, but since 1995, China has become an importer of soybeans.
After China and the United States signed the "China-US Agricultural Cooperation Agreement" in 1999, China became the world's largest soybean importer in 2001.
From the second half of 2001 to 2003, due to price hikes by US grain merchants, soybean contracts on my country's Dalian Futures Exchange began to rise continuously.
From 1,700 yuan to 3,499 yuan, the price of soybeans has doubled.
Afterwards, the USDA suddenly issued a statement saying that due to bad weather, it had lowered its expected soybean stocks to the lowest level in more than 20 years.
As soon as the news came out, global soybean prices skyrocketed to 4,400 yuan/ton.
Faced with doubled prices, many Chinese soybean companies refused to accept it, began to reduce imports, and used soybeans in stock to meet daily production.
In March 2004, the United States Department of Agriculture announced that it would not increase soybean production. Since then, global soybean prices have risen rapidly to 5,500 yuan/ton, and there is no sign of stopping.
At this time, after holding on for half a year, Chinese soybean companies no longer have soybean stocks.
Amid panic, in early 2004, China sent an agricultural product purchasing mission to the United States and "snapped" more than 8 million tons of soybeans at a historically high price of 4,300 yuan/ton.
However, just one month after Chinese companies completed their panic buying, the US Department of Agriculture raised the soybean inventory. International financial speculators went short on the Chicago Board of Trade and began to sell soybeans crazily.
In just two or three months, the price of soybeans plummeted from 5,500 yuan/ton to 2,200 yuan/ton, returning directly to the starting point of this round of crazy soybean price speculation.
Facing the plummeting soybean prices, Chinese soybean companies that had just signed huge long-term soybean purchase contracts were all dumbfounded.
After this battle, the vitality of China's soybean industry was severely damaged.
Guo Yang recalled this period of history with great emotion.
It was already the end of May 2002, and this 'soybean crisis' must have been brewing.
But he is not yet able to prevent this crisis from happening.
In the final analysis, the fundamental reason for the 'soybean crisis' is that our country has a large population, relatively small arable land, and food production cannot meet demand.
"Unless there is a particularly high-yield soybean variety, it will be useless."
Guo Yang murmured, and then his eyes lit up, and he quickly opened the seed store and looked for soybean varieties.
What comes into view is only one page of soybean varieties, all of which are red and orange. Low-level soybean seeds can still only be cultivated in targeted ways.
Guo Yang directly chose the one with the highest price.
[Variety]: Soybean
[Characteristics]: This variety... has the characteristics of high yield, stable yield, high quality, multiple resistance, wide adaptability, and suitable for mechanized production. The yield per unit area reaches 1000kg/mu...
[Price]: 9999 natural energy points.
Guo Yang feels that his brain is a little down. The yield is 1000 kg/acre?
What kind of monster is this!
You must know that until 2023, my country’s soybean yield per mu will only be more than 200 kilograms.
The highest record of soybean yield per mu is 15 acres of soybeans at the XJ Shihezi National Soybean Comprehensive Experiment Station in 2020, with an average yield of 453.5kg/mu.
In 2002, was my country’s soybean yield per mu 200 kilograms?
Guo Yang secretly smacked his tongue, how many times has this doubled?
Disruptive output, coupled with characteristics such as stable production, high quality, multi-resistant, wide adaptability, and suitable for mechanized production.
If such a seed comes out...
‘Soy crisis? ’
What the hell is that!
Guo Yang had a hard time imagining what kind of scene it was.
It’s just 9999 natural energy points, which doesn’t look like he can afford it in a short time.
"Huh..." Guo Yang took a deep breath.
"The top priority is to make money quickly, accumulate natural energy early, and realize the value of seed stores early."
Soybean futures are an opportunity for him. He is familiar with this history and understands some futures, so he can definitely take advantage of the opportunity to accumulate capital.
But the problem now is still lack of money, and you need to have capital to play futures.
Is there any way to make money quickly?
At this moment, Guo Yang suddenly saw a football poster of the Chinese team hanging on the wall of the dormitory.
I saw the familiar Sun Taiyang, Tiezi, General Fan and others.
Football? The national football team in 2002?
Guo Yang smiled.
The first pot of gold, he already has an idea.
That is the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan!
In his previous life, Guo Yang was influenced by his father and loved playing football since he was a child.
At the same time, because his father likes to buy football lottery tickets, Guo Yang has a deep impression of this World Cup.
Especially the top eight guessing!
This World Cup has seen frequent upsets. Four out of the eight traditional strong teams of Brazil, Italy, Argentina, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and England, which were the most popular before the game, were eliminated.
At the same time, Senegal, the new African team, and South Korea, which has been going all the way to the bottom, are close to the quarterfinals. There were more than 60 million lottery tickets across the country, with a betting amount of 125 million, but in the end, not a single lottery ticket won the prize.
As a result, more than 80 million in bonuses were rolled into charity funds.
The Sports Lottery Center made a huge fortune from this, and the money was squandered in less than a year!
When he heard his father talking about this over and over again, he just felt annoyed.
And because his father bought lottery tickets for a long time, the family was often noisy, which made Guo Yang hate lottery tickets very much.
But I didn’t expect that these once boring memories would now be of great help.
"Today is the 21st, and the World Cup seems to start on the 31st."
"I have to hurry up and buy lottery tickets in the next two days."
Guo Yang is about to get up, But I felt uncomfortable all over.
My body is still weak!
"Zi..." The old dormitory door opened from the outside, making a harsh sound.
A slightly smaller boy in plain clothes walked in with a lunch box in hand. Seeing Guo Yang already sitting on the edge of the bed, he quickly said:
"Wake up! You must be hungry. I brought you food, eat it while it’s hot!”
Bi Qiang, a native of Jinchang, Long Province, is also a poor student like Guo Yang.
But the difference is that Bi Qiang is outgoing and confident, and his personality is as strong as his name.
But because of this, he often had verbal conflicts with several other people in the dormitory, but he was actually a pretty good person.
The information about this person came to Guo Yang's mind, and he was indeed hungry. He smiled softly and said, "Thank you, Brother Qiang, I will give you the money later."
"No, I'm doing an internship now. I brought this lunch box for you from my work unit." Bi Qiang placed the lunch box on the long public table in the center of the dormitory, opened the lid, and pushed it toward Guo Yang. Pushed.
“Internship?” Guo Yang took the lunch box, and the smell of food hit him.
“Yes, as I told you before, the Vegetable Research Institute of the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences came over early to help when nothing happened.”
"Oh, my mind has been a little confused these past two days."
Bi Qiang walked back and forth in the dormitory twice, and seemed to think carefully before saying:
"Why are you working so hard? Is it important to study abroad? ”
“And I heard that your main competitor, Chen Yunpeng, not only has a mentor who is the dean of the college, but also has an uncle who is a big leader in the city.”
After eating a few mouthfuls of food, Guo Yang felt his mouth was spicy and his whole body seemed to feel more relaxed.
"I've figured it out and don't plan to study abroad anymore."
Bi Qiang said in surprise: "Giving up so soon? That's fine. Although the country will provide full coverage, there are many restrictions."
Guo Yang nodded.
Bi Qiang didn’t ask any more questions, thinking that Guo Yang had retreated due to difficulties.
After taking a few mouthfuls of rice, Guo Yang gasped and said, "The food in your cafeteria is good, especially the chili peppers are quite spicy and spicy enough."
"Of course, this is a newly cultivated variety that we have just started to promote. Although it doesn't look good, it tastes good."
"You kid can eat it because of me." .”
It’s not easy to promote peppers because of their ugly appearance, Guo Yang complained silently.
He thought about his experience in planting 1,700 acres of peppers and bell peppers in his previous life. Some of the seeds were imported from Israel.
The advantages of foreign seeds are obvious. Take hot peppers as an example. Domestic hot pepper seeds can only be harvested in two crops, while Israeli seeds can be harvested in three crops. They also have good-looking appearance, high market recognition, and high sales prices.
The only disadvantage is that seeds are expensive. The average seed cost per mu is more than 1,000 yuan, and each seed costs nearly 20 cents.
When sowing, domestic seeds are mixed with sand and soil, while imported seeds must be placed one by one for fear of wasting.
Not only pepper seeds, in fact even by 2023, many vegetable seeds in our country will still rely on imports.
Onions, carrots, eggplants, tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli...many of these most common vegetables are grown from foreign seeds, and some even rely on imports.
For example, the most common white radish on people’s tables, most of its seeds come from South Korea. The price is more than 20 times higher than domestic seeds, but it is still more competitive than local radish.
But it is still 2002, my country's seed industry market has just begun to liberalize, and multinational seed industry companies have only begun to make global arrangements.
Although the huge pressure brought by foreign seeds has come, multinational companies have not yet adapted to the domestic market, and some familiar varieties have not yet been put on the market.
For example, Pioneer Company’s corn Xianyu 335 was promoted over an area of more than 40 million acres in my country at its peak, and it has been crushing domestic corn seeds for more than ten years.
Guo Yang thought about his seed store and felt more and more that he had a heavy responsibility.
Recovering, Guo Yang continued:
"Yes, yes, thank you to my brother Qiang. I will pay you back double in the future."
"When you are free later, let's go buy some football lottery tickets together?"
Bi Qiang was surprised. Looking at Guo Yang: "Why are you thinking about buying lottery tickets? Don't you just want to do research?"
"Isn't this the national football team entering the World Cup? Get ready to play."
Bi Qiang smiled and said: "It seems that you have really figured it out, but you can only buy it when you are free. I will have to go to the test base to help."
Guo Yang was stunned for a moment and thought of something: "Then you came back specially to deliver food to me?"
"Yes."
(End of this chapter)
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