Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 735 Commercialized Agriculture

On February 1648, 2, the land on the east coast of the fertile fields ushered in the harvest season. Whether it was Pingan County, Xihu County, and Zhenhai County in the Duck Lake Basin, or Meilin County and Xiayihe County in the Yihe area (1 years In January, the executive committee approved the establishment, including Xiayihe Township, Heyangbao, Ningjin Township, Onuma Township), or Dongfang County, Luocha County, and Qingdao County further south (established together with Xiayihe County, including Qingdao Town, Guiyi Township, Sifang Township, Xinxiang Township, and the Second Fort of the Corps) are filled with joyful harvests.

According to statistics and estimates, the 103 million mu of wheat fields sown in the East Coast Republic of China last year harvested a total of more than 118 tons of wheat, with an average yield of 13.5 catties per mu, an increase of [-]% from last year.We must know that this achievement was achieved on the basis of adding many new habitats, which is very difficult. From this, we can also see the terrifying food production potential of the mature cultivated land on the east coast that has been reclaimed for a long time.Of course, this is also related to the army’s continuous collection of cattle and sheep from La Plata, and the in-depth promotion of the three-crop crop rotation system in China. All in all, the agricultural development on the east coast is really improving step by step.

In the tide of agricultural harvest, some agricultural machinery leasing companies began to appear in the fields, using their own machinery and equipment such as horse-drawn harvesters, tedders, and grain lifters to help farmers harvest grain and dry pasture.After harvesting the wheat in the field, before the agricultural machinery company left the site, some steam plows began to move from the construction site to the field to help farmers clear ditches and plow the land in preparation for the next tight autumn plowing operation.

With the gradual development of agricultural machinery leasing enterprises, the industrial chain of this industry has gradually taken shape.The most upstream Dafeng Agricultural Machinery Factory also got rid of the loss-making dilemma and began to make some profits, which in turn prompted them to spend more energy on improving the reliability and reliability of the machines under the financial subsidies from the Ministry of Agriculture. Quality, while developing more new machines.

In the downstream, some self-employed agricultural machinery repairers have gradually increased, and they have all received more or less free training on relevant knowledge at Dafeng Agricultural Machinery Factory (it is Dafeng Agricultural Machinery Factory’s consistent policy to train agricultural machinery maintenance personnel, which can increase the number of agricultural machinery manufacturers. The number of employees in the industry, enriching the soil of the agricultural machinery market), so it also began to provide supporting services for agricultural machinery leasing companies.And it is precisely because of their efforts that the agricultural modernization on the east coast has really seen the dawn of its start.

As for what to plant on the harvested farmland, the country does not have any uniform regulations on this.But when it comes to specific counties or towns, the local area generally has a unified plan, which is mainly for the convenience of harvesting.After all, there is still a difference between a horse-drawn corn harvester and a horse-drawn soybean harvester. If a village or even a township grows messy crops, it is really not easy to coordinate and deploy them in the current situation of relative shortage of agricultural machinery. Therefore, Now each township generally has a unified planting plan.

However, compared with the administrative orders of the township government, the market has the greatest constraints on farmers.On the east coast today, especially in the south, sowing soybeans in autumn has become a common practice.This kind of crop has high economic value and can fix nitrogen, which can protect soil fertility to a certain extent. Therefore, the sowing area in rural areas is increasing.Even in Qishan Township and Heyangbao in the south, most farmers there grow soybeans twice a year.

The soybean crop is probably the most commercialized crop on the east coast today.This crop bred from the Northeast soybeans brought by the people who crossed over has been planted all over the north and south of the Great Lakes, and was even brought to Brazil by Portuguese spies and began to be planted in small quantities-but the reason is limited to the climate.On today's earth, there is really only one family on the east coast that grows soybeans on a large scale and industrially.

In today's Qishan Township, Meilin County, the soybean oil extraction industry has become a common practice.A large number of manual workshops and mechanical and semi-mechanical enterprises began to set foot in this industry, which made the domestic soybean industry on the east coast develop rapidly.Among them, some low-cost workshop-type enterprises still adopt the traditional animal-pulled mill to crush soybeans, then steam them, and then squeeze the oil through wedge-type presses; some powerful ones are more advanced, and they use steam engines Soybeans are crushed, and then the oil is pressed by hand or animal-powered screw presses; while the Xuji Oil Press Factory, which represents the most advanced oil extraction process on the east coast, uses full steam power, machine crushed soybeans, machine steamed, The hydraulic pressing method not only has better production technology and production scale than other enterprises, but also has higher soybean oil quality and soybean utilization rate, which can be called the leader in this industry.

With the package cooperation agreement reached between the East Coast Republic and the Genoese, soybean oil produced on the East Coast began to be tested in the stores of large syndicate companies such as St. George's Trading Company.This edible oil, which has never appeared in the European market, has gradually gained some users under the hard-working recommendation of the Genoese. These are those who can neither afford butter nor olive oil (Ottoman, the main producing area of ​​olive oil The empire has recently fallen into chaos, and exports have dropped sharply), poor people, because the soybean oil on the east coast is extremely cheap, so they had no choice but to buy some food, and after a long time, they also formed a small number of regular customers. China's soybean oil has more or less opened up some markets in Europe-mainly in the German region.

In addition, after seeing that Europeans have a soft spot for butter, people on the east coast also started to research margarine.At present, the Academy of Natural Sciences has successfully used pressed soybean oil as raw material under laboratory conditions to produce oil somewhat similar to butter.At present, they are continuing to research and improve, in order to develop an edible alternative oil that is not much different from real butter as soon as possible. If this can be successfully applied to industrial production, then it will be of great significance to the East Coast. Because this is a kind of daily necessities that can be called cotton cloth, the consumer market is extremely broad, and it is simply a cash cow.

The market for margarine is still uncertain, but bean cake, an important residue and by-product, has become an important commodity on the East Coast.In today's vast rural areas, farmers are happy to buy some leftover bean cakes from oil mills to make livestock feed, or simply use them to fertilize the fields.And the popularization of bean cakes by the agricultural technology promoters of various township agricultural technology stations has fueled such a trend, especially for those farmers who have raised a lot of livestock. In addition to planting alfalfa on fallow land, they also Usually, I also regularly buy some bean cakes to feed the livestock.

At the same time, they are now beginning to realize that bean cakes also play a considerable role in fertilizing the fields, so if the price is not very expensive, they will spare no expense to buy some and use them back. The market has effectively improved the profitability of various companies.

However, since the middle of 1648, a large number of oil-extracting enterprises on the east bank gathered in Qishan Township, Meilin County have become more and more willing to sell the by-product of bean cake abroad instead of selling it to domestic farmers.The main reason for this is that the neighboring Brazilians buy a large amount of bean cakes at a price higher than the domestic market price on the east coast, and then transport them back to their sugarcane plantations to fertilize the fields.

Sugarcane, an important economic crop, is actually very land-consuming.Usually a piece of fertile virgin land is used to grow sugar cane or tobacco. If the owner does not take good care of it, it may not take long for the land to run out of fertility and can no longer grow these very profitable cash crops.But the bean cake is different. It can well supplement the nutrients lost by the land, prolong the service life of the land, and enable the owners of sugarcane plantations to obtain greater economic benefits.And this is obviously the reason why they are willing to spend money to buy bean cakes on the east coast. After all, compared with the violent sugarcane sugar industry, the purchase cost of some bean cakes seems a bit worthless.

Just as Europeans in history imported a large number of Chinese bean cakes from Northeast China for their tropical colonies, the Portuguese planters of this era also quickly discovered the value of bean cakes, and then began to wave their wallets to the east coast ports to buy in large quantities. up.In the second half of 1648 alone, people from the East Bank exported more than 1.8 tons of bean cakes to Brazil through the port of Rocha, with an average export price of 1.44 yuan per bag ([-] kg per bag), creating an export revenue of [-] yuan.

Soybeans are truly an amazing crop!This is the common aspiration of many workers and business owners who are engaged in the soybean industry in Qishan Township, Meilin County.It can not only squeeze soybean oil, but also have important by-products such as soybean cake. In addition to being used as cooking oil, soybean oil can also be used as the main raw material for making soap, and it can even be used to make margarine. A promising commodity; and bean cakes are similar, not only can be used as animal feed, but also can be used to fertilize the fields. It is almost used to the extreme, and there is no waste in it, which is simply a miracle.

And since the prospects are so broad, driven by commercial capital and industrial capital, the East Bank Administration Council has now seriously formulated a revitalization plan for the soybean industry.With the arrival of new immigrants (approximately 1.5 Ming immigrants will arrive in the mainland this year, with a male to female ratio of 2:1), the Government Council plans to build a new Heyin Fort (Rio Blanco on the other side of the Jaguarang River) ), Xinminbao (later Vergara Town), Xiaoxi Township (Grand Arroyo), Zhongyihebao (Sarandi de I) and Carmen Township (Carmen), the five first settlements planted soybeans.

Anyway, the newly reclaimed land in these new settlements is basically raw land. It is not a bad thing to plant some alfalfa or soybeans to fertilize the fields in the past few years. On the contrary, it will benefit the harvest when planting grains in the future, so why not do it?

(End of this chapter)