Chapter 1155: Building a Granary in the Northern Frontier

After receiving the order, the assistant turned around and left the office as if he was running for his life, fearing that he would be affected by the anger of the leader.

However, before he returned to his office and started writing, Zhao Guangsheng had already received a call from Bi Liang, director of the Development Planning Department of the Ministry of Agriculture.

The other party asked straight to the point without any nonsense:

"Old Zhao, the ministry is preparing to let Sinograin release 800,000 tons of soybean reserves. What do you think?"

Obviously, the leaders were not idle either.

They were thinking about the same thing as him.

However, Zhao Guangsheng's expression did not relax at all because of this.

After thinking for a while, he answered:

"In the short term, it should be possible to hedge the futures price slightly, but in the medium and long term, it cannot affect the general trend of price increases..."

There was only silence on the other end of the phone...

Finally, Zhao Guangsheng, who could not stand the depressing atmosphere, continued:

"According to our calculations, if it is only to supply the basic limit of domestic consumption, then combined with part of this year's production, it can be roughly maintained until early summer next year...But if we take into account the panic of enterprises and the public, and the speculators who are sweeping up stocks in the financial market..."

In fact, he is definitely not a defeatist counselor.

But the current situation does not allow him to give an optimistic answer--

Although the national special grain reserve system was established in 1990, 14 years ago, its original intention was not to make strategic reserves to cope with food shortages, but because the continuous bumper harvest of grain led to serious oversupply in some areas, the state stepped in to solve the problem of grain sales.

It was not until 2000 that the special grain reserve was officially transformed into a central reserve grain vertical management system, and the China National Grain and Oils Corporation was established in the same year.

As for clarifying its mission of macro-controlling the grain market, it had to wait until 2003.

It was only a year away, and there was no time to accumulate much inventory.

Although it could solve the problem temporarily, it was still obviously unable to hedge against the four major grain traders with abundant resources, as well as the financial tycoons on Wall Street.

As a product of the modern financial industry, the futures market had already, to some extent, deviated from the scope of physical delivery by the time it developed to the 21st century.

Sometimes it can even dominate the supply and demand relationship in the physical market.

In this case, if you want to suppress the price by simply releasing goods, then the quantity that is "enough" is absolutely impossible.

Referring to the "two whites and one black" war in Shanghai in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was necessary to take out excessive material reserves, so that those speculators would either eat until their capital chain was broken or lose confidence and dare not continue to stockpile goods, in order to settle the matter.

However, the current reserves of China Grain Reserves Corporation are still too far away from this requirement.

After a few seconds... or maybe more than ten seconds, the other party spoke again:

"What if we can get the support of Louis Dreyfus... or at least a neutral position?"

This question surprised Zhao Guangsheng.

After all, he had never heard of any special relationship between the agricultural sector and Louis Dreyfus before.

But from Bi Liang's tone, he seemed very confident about it.

But the problem is that among the four major grain traders, they just got the only useless one at the moment...

"It doesn't make much sense..."

Zhao Guangsheng gave the same pessimistic answer as before helplessly:

"If it is staple food...including corn, then Louis Dreyfus does have a certain influence, but the soybean market is almost completely controlled by North America, and the French can't play a decisive role..."

For a while, the scene seemed to be deadlocked...

The situation in the next few days was almost exactly the same as Zhao Guangsheng's prediction.

The 800,000 tons of inventory released by Sinograin did alleviate the overheating of the domestic market to a certain extent, but it was soon swept away by downstream companies that were already killing red-eyed.

The second round of releases that followed finally barely stopped these companies from going overseas to buy goods at high prices, but if the anxiety at the market level cannot be alleviated, it can only be a temporary solution.

Therefore, some positive signals must be released.

If it were in the past, there would be no better way except to continue to release reserves.

After all, neither the financial market nor the public opinion position is in their own hands.

You can only bring out the real goods to speak.

But now, there is really a positive signal that is easy to get...

...

So, one day in early September, Chang Haonan suddenly received a call, asking him and Zhuang Bingchang to come to the Academy of Sciences for a meeting in three days.

Although Professor Zhuang had just returned to Meng Province not long ago, after all, this matter was of great importance, and it was directly named by the superior, so he must still go.

Compared with a month ago, the number of attendees at this meeting was not large, with less than 20 names on the list, and the format was closer to a traditional symposium.

But the specifications were even better.

Moreover, it is also closer to a staffing configuration that can make decisions directly.

"There's a chance!"

As soon as Chang Haonan entered the room, he immediately raised his psychological threshold.

And Zhuang Bingchang, who followed him in, also behaved much more skillfully after experiencing the last big scene.

He greeted everyone in the room one by one, then sat down in his seat and opened the document in front of him marked "internal information", which was about a hundred pages long, and began to read it.

After another ten minutes, the remaining empty seats were gradually filled.

The meeting officially began as the elder sitting at the head opened the microphone.

"I think all comrades have already understood the developments in the international market in the past half month."

When the big leader presides over the meeting, he does not need so much preparation, but goes straight to the topic:

"Sinograin has planned to release the third batch of 800,000 tons of soybean reserves, which is expected to stabilize market sentiment until the end of October, but continuing like this is not an option. The inventory in our hands is limited and must be supplemented by other means to boost the entire industry. Confidence in the raw material market.”

"At the beginning of last month, Comrade Chang Haonan once proposed that sand modification technology could be used to transform three desertified sandlands in eastern Mongolia Province into farmland with farming conditions. Therefore, we plan to launch the project during the critical stage of this year's autumn harvest. A new high-standard farmland construction project..."

"..."

Compared with 2007, when the second soybean war occurred in the previous life, the current time has a huge advantage.

Even though thousands of related domestic companies are still in their own hands, they have not been bought out by international grain merchants.

They may hoard raw materials beyond normal reserves out of panic, but as downstream members of the industrial chain, they have no motivation or strength to actively hoard goods and drive up prices.

It is also much easier to calm down the situation.

After the big leader's outlining speech, it was the turn of the relevant departments to express their positions.

The first is of course Li Zhongyi from the Industrial and Construction Committee:

"During this period, we have conducted a situational analysis of the two main raw materials mentioned by Academician Chang last time. Among them, polyacrylamide is a very common water-soluble polymer product. The expected domestic production capacity is 250,000 tons per year. There is also an import volume of about 30,000 to 50,000 tons, which can basically fully meet the needs of the pilot project.”

"But another kind..."

Having said this, he paused for a moment and glanced in the direction of Chang Haonan:

"Sodium carboxymethyl cellulose has previously only been used on a relatively large scale in the food industry and oil mining industry. The total output in the world is only about 300,000-400,000 tons per year, and the domestic production capacity is only about 100,000 tons. However, we have contacted state-owned enterprises in relevant industries and are doing our best to ensure the priority supply of strategic projects..."

"..."

Next is the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission:

“We plan to stop the restructuring plan planned by Huaxia Aquatic Products Group Corporation and Huaxia Animal Husbandry and Industry and Commerce Group Corporation next month, and instruct the latter to fully cooperate with Huaxia Agricultural Reclamation Group Corporation to ensure sufficient quantities of related forest and grass products, fertilizers and pesticides Supply, and communicate with local pastoral areas in a timely manner to avoid land use disputes..."

The leaders of the Ministry of Agriculture also followed suit:

"Among the three areas proposed by Academician Chang last time, winter is about to begin in the Hulunbuir Sandy Land, and the temperature is approaching subzero, making it difficult to further carry out sand transformation work. However, there are roughly three areas left in the Horqin Sandy Land and Hunshandake Sandy Land. Within a month's time window, according to the data reported by the Mongolian Provincial Farm Reclamation, they can allocate more than 23,000 employees and no less than 1,000 vehicles (sets) from 118 state-owned farms and ranches without affecting the progress of the autumn harvest. equipment……"

"In addition, if the demand still cannot be met, further support can be obtained from the agricultural reclamation agencies in the three northeastern provinces..."

"..."

Although it was not a military project, the industrial and agricultural systems still demonstrated to Chang Haonan the efficiency of mobilizing a nationwide effort.

These resources will definitely be a drop in the bucket to support the 40 million acres plan in the first phase of the project, but if they are pooled together, there is still a chance to complete the million-acre transformation task.

The only problem is time.

In agriculture, progress cannot be caught up by just working overtime.

Of course, Chang Haonan understood that the superior's intention was not to use the output of his million acres of land to help the market, but to use this plan to provide confidence to the domestic market.

International capital is not a deus ex machina villain NPC. They also need to borrow money from banks to open positions and speculate in stocks, and they also have to bear the corresponding cash flow pressure.

In the same way, the four major grain merchants also need to rent land and granaries to hoard soybeans, and they also have to bear the losses of long-term storage.

Therefore, as long as we can withstand this wave of attacks, when the expected severe natural disaster does not occur at the turn of next spring and summer, the opponent will be unable to hold on.

But knowing it all, Chang Haonan still suppressed the excitement and emotion in his heart and gave everyone a vaccination in advance:

"Using soil fixatives to transform sandy land is only the first stage of the entire plan. Later, it will need to be reinforced through the roots of herbaceous plants, and then modified soybeans will be used to restore soil fertility. The entire cycle will take about 2-3 years. , Regarding the bean shortage problem, I am afraid that water from a distance cannot quench the thirst for nearness. "

"In addition, the soybean varieties we use for modification focus on drought and salt-alkali tolerance, and are not outstanding in terms of yield..."

Sure enough, the leader in front waved his hand, indicating that he didn't need to say more:

"Rest assured, we will not make demands that are divorced from the actual situation."

"As long as by next summer, the planned farmland can turn green and grow soybean crops that everyone can see and touch, this 'Saibei Granary' plan will be considered a success!"