Great Power Technology

"Give the production-increasing technology to Xiong Da?"

Ye Zhou frowned, seeming to understand a deeper meaning from Chen Hao's words.

As he had judged before, there is currently no major gap in the world's food supply. The man-made gap is either caused by traders hoarding or stampede panic buying.

The former is easy to operate, but the amount of funds is limited and the gap it can create is also limited. While the latter is difficult to operate, once it is completely instigated, the effects it can cause are also extremely terrifying.

Therefore, what Rabbit really has to solve is not only the problem of stockpiling by the four major grain merchants, but also to properly deal with the panic they can incite.

This is the purpose of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences' emergency project to launch gene editing technology. They do not need to actually grow a large amount of rice with this technology this year. As long as they can prove through strong evidence that "we can grow it", it is enough.

And going one step further, what if more than just rabbits can be grown?

Can a big bear be grown?

What if all the countries that sided with the rabbit could grow it?

So obviously, by that time, the fear of so-called "famine" will become a joke.

Thinking of this, Ye Zhou breathed a long sigh of relief.

The rabbit always sees more than the situation requires.

China not only wants to resist, but also wants to counterattack.

The opponents they are targeting are not only the four major grain merchants, but also... seed companies.

This is a chess piece based on the global food market. After this chess piece falls, there will be one killing move after another.

After a pause, he asked:

"This should be a relatively backward strategy. What now? What are we mainly doing now?"

"Now?"

Chen Hao thought for a few seconds and then replied:

"Catch smuggling and rumor-mongering, and prepare for emergency deployment of resources."

"Emergency release of staple grains? - Will COFCO directly seize the terminal market?"

"Yes. They want to seize this opportunity and change the production model of grain and oil from the source. You can probably guess where this opportunity comes from, right?"

Ye Zhou nodded and sighed with emotion.

The modern market economy is indeed a magical thing. Two seemingly unrelated things are actually connected at this moment.

The core node of this connection is polypropylene.

…

Taizhou, Shenkai Packaging Factory.

Factory Director Liu Yuanzheng was patrolling the factory production line anxiously, with an expression on his face that was tense but also filled with a vague expectation.

He has been sleeping less than 4 hours a day for two full weeks, but such busyness does not make him feel tired. Instead, the energy in his body is as endless as a chicken blood.

His factory has just received a large order. The content of the order is to produce food-grade packaging bags, and the order quantity is 100 million pieces.

One hundred million food packaging bags that are 40 centimeters long, 30 centimeters wide, and have a capacity of 25 liters.

A few months ago, when this order first appeared on the market, hundreds of plastic product manufacturers in Taizhou immediately pounced on it like sharks smelling blood, and his Shenkai Packaging Factory was one of them.

Compared with other manufacturers in the plastic kingdom of Taizhou, his factory does not have an advantage in scale or technology, but his foresight is far greater than that of the heads of other manufacturers because he is keenly aware of the basics. logic.

The order was placed by COFCO. The purpose of the packaging bags is to commercialize all staple food products. Therefore, in order to obtain this order, he only had to guarantee two points:

Safe and cheap.

In terms of safety, it is actually not difficult to ensure safety as long as the raw materials reach food grade and the production process is controlled to a certain extent. Therefore, the core of competition is just price.

However, it is not easy to compete on price with peers in an already extremely mature industry.

During the bidding stage, many peers offered unit prices that were almost equal to the cost. If they produced at this unit price, it would be almost impossible for manufacturers to make money.

After the results of the first round of bidding were announced, 90% of hundreds of manufacturers withdrew instantly. None of them had the ability to further reduce costs, so they did not intend to undertake such a large-scale project that was almost destined to lose money.

But Liu Yuan did not quit because he saw an opportunity from public news reports.

Domestic sulfur-silicon batteries are being rolled out on a large scale. The traditional energy market has been severely impacted, and international crude oil prices have plummeted.

Although in a short period of time, with the joint efforts of all parties, the price of crude oil returned to a stable price, Liu Yuan knew that this price was definitely fake.

The demand for oil has actually decreased.

So he quickly deduced that since crude oil is in a serious oversupply situation and the price of international crude oil is stable and does not fall, then what will fall must be other manufactured products related to crude oil.

The price of polypropylene, the most important among petroleum products and the key raw material for plastics, must fall.

Moreover, as soon as it starts to fall, it will definitely fall sharply.

Therefore, based on his own understanding, Liu Yuan made a jaw-dropping offer in the second round of bidding, directly halving the lowest offer in the first round.

Everyone thought he was crazy, but only he knew that this would be a huge gamble.

If sulfur-silicon batteries are really as powerful as what is said in the news, and if the country can really end traditional fossil energy hegemony with new energy, then the decision he made will become a classic battle recorded in the annals of business history.

But if sulfur-silicon batteries and new energy sources fail, they will be in a desperate situation.

——

The results are clear.

On that very ordinary and ordinary day when he had no idea what was going on, the price of polypropylene suddenly began to plummet.

In the following week, polypropylene prices fell to an all-time low, only 15% of their pre-plunge levels.

Not only did the price he offered not allow him to face a loss, he even made a profit - a big profit!

Therefore, his not-so-large factory naturally took on this task, which may play a decisive role in the food security of the entire China. In order to complete this task, he directly issued wages to all workers who worked overtime. Four times the overtime wages, even the canteen began to operate 24 hours a day, just to complete the order before the contract deadline and get the substantial early performance bonus provided by COFCO.

Liu Yuan inspected the production line, recorded several key nodes with low efficiency with a pen, then turned away from the production line and headed towards the canteen, preparing to eat his first meal of the day.

There were already many employees who had changed shifts eating in the canteen. He randomly picked a table and sat down. Because it was a family management, the relationship between him and the employees was not too unfamiliar. When they saw him coming, the employees did not He was restrained, and after simply saying hello, he continued the conversation on the original topic.

"...So I said, the country must have huge plans this time. Think about it, 100 million packaging bags, each containing 40 kilograms of grain, how many tons does that add up to? Twenty million tons?"

"Two million tons."

"Yes, two million tons. This is just the first batch of orders. I heard that other manufacturers have also received orders, and their quantities are not small. Boss, is this news correct?"

Liu Yuan nodded and replied:

"That's right. Hongyuan and Xinxin have also received orders, no less than us."

"That's right! So the current situation is that the country will directly attack those grain compradors."

"What does it mean?"

After hearing what the worker said, Liu Yuan asked with some confusion.

He himself didn't know much about grain, so he couldn't make any connection between the so-called "packaging bag" and "comprador" for the time being.

The worker put down his chopsticks, coughed and said:

"First we have to solve a problem: What is the difference between us consumers buying food and compradors buying food?"

"Is it the difference in purchase volume?"

"That's right! When we buy grain, it's enough to buy dozens or hundreds of kilograms at a time, but what about the compradors? What they buy at one time is not calculated in kilograms, but thousands of tons!"

"You will know from the news recently. This time the country said it would release 100 million tons of staple grains, and it has already begun to do so. But has there been more food on our market? No? What's the reason?"

"It's very simple. Most of the food has been eaten by these compradors. After they eat it, they don't really put it into the market. Instead, they hoard it in their own hands and wait for the price to be sold!"

"Such a result is terrible. If the country wants to release grain to rescue the market, it must first satisfy the comprador's appetite, and the efficiency of the rescue will be greatly reduced."

"So, COFCO has to take another path - which is what we are doing now."

"They want to pack all the grain to be put into small packages and then put it directly into the terminal market through COFCO's existing channels!"

"Put it in supermarkets, grain and oil stores, and the canteen downstairs of your home!"

"In this case, compradors will no longer be able to find opportunities to stock up on food supplies—unless they go to the supermarket to scan the goods in person."

"If there are really compradors who do this, it would be more than enough to convict them of disrupting the market."

"So this wave is a reappearance of history. In the Soybean Oil Battle, the country actually used this method, but the scale was much smaller than this time."

After hearing the explanation from the builder, Liu Yuan nodded sincerely and said approvingly:

"When three of us are together, we must have my teacher. Xiao He, you know a lot."

Xiao He smiled sheepishly and replied:

"I just happened to read some interpretations. It's not something difficult to understand."

"You're being modest. It's good to have thought of this step. But I still have a question. It's not easy to put such a huge amount of small packaged grain into the terminal market, isn't it?"

A proud smile appeared on Xiao He's face, and then he answered:

"It may not be easy for other countries."

"But we have Hualiang Logistics and Huaxia Post."