Chapter 289 On the Brink of Collapse (Ch 831243776)

Omar withdrew his envious gaze.
Ali on the side shook his head and said: “This kind of airship is very useful for firefighting, but we can only purchase it in Cairo in Egypt, and it is not very useful in other places.”
Everyone naturally understood what Ali meant.
After all, there are not many high-rise buildings in Egypt except the capital Cairo.
Without densely packed high-rise buildings, purchasing a fire-fighting airship just for a few buildings would probably not be worth the effort.
The Shanghai Fire Department has the capital to purchase fire-fighting airships because Shanghai has a high density of high-rise buildings, and the Hengsha Island airship base can provide maintenance, so there is no need to build a dedicated airship base.
If there are no such convenient conditions and usage scenarios, purchasing a fire-fighting airship, the annual maintenance costs and the supporting facilities of the airship base will be a huge burden.
Omar turned around and asked, “Suman, is there any place you recommend for inspection?”
“Let me let me know…” Su Man thought while searching for some information about the Magic City on his mobile phone. After all, his previous impression of the Magic City was still from more than ten years ago, and the situation must have changed a lot now.
After searching on his phone for more than ten minutes, he suddenly saw a more suitable place: “Manager Omar, since we are here to purchase food, why don’t we go and investigate the local agriculture?”
“Agriculture?” Omar also thought this was a good direction. Although they could take the opportunity to come to the Magic City to eat, drink and have fun, they still had to have some reasons. “What do you recommend?”
Suman smiled and said, “Let’s go to the island opposite. There are a lot of farms on that island. We can investigate Seris’s agricultural technology.”
“Okay, you lead the way.”
“no problem.”
Passing through the tunnel and the Shanghai Yangtze River Bridge, the group chartered a car to Chongming Island.
Soon they arrived at their destination: the Chongming Island Branch of Hailufeng Company.
This branch mainly produces various vegetables and fruits that are not resistant to transportation, and also operates aquaculture on Chongming Island.
Since Hailufeng Company allows consumers to visit areas that do not involve confidential technology, Omar and his group easily purchased visitor ID cards.
In fact, if you are a local or permanent resident of Shanghai, after you apply for membership, you can easily enter farms and breeding farms by simply swiping your ID card, or through facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, or telephone number recognition.
The few crop and aquaculture projects that do not allow outsiders to visit are those that are easily disturbed by external factors or infected by foreign bacteria and fungi.
These projects that are not allowed to be visited are generally not close to major metropolitan areas.
After getting their ID cards, Omar and his group came to the first site to be visited.
“Is this a honeydew melon?” Looking at the honeydew melons on the shelf, which were specially caught in a net bag, Omar was not too surprised. After all, Egypt has products such as honeydew melons and watermelons.
Su Man introduced them to everyone: “If you want to buy some, you can go to the food and beverage area. There are ripe honeydew melons over there.”
“Okay, Mr. Suman.”
Although Omar and others want to eat, drink and have fun, it does not mean that they are doing nothing. They are learning about the crop varieties, yields and agricultural techniques here.
Suddenly Ali noticed a detail. He whispered, “Brother Suman, what are these farm workers doing? Why are they replacing the plastic mulch? I see that the plastic mulch is not broken.”
“Let me ask.”
A group of people approached farm workers who were replacing plastic mulch.
“Hello! I’m Suman, a tourist from Egypt.”
The worker who was concentrating on his work looked up nonchalantly after hearing the half-baked Mandarin: “Hello, this is the work area, please visit other areas.”
Su Man laughed dryly and asked, “I’m just curious, these mulches should be good, right? Why do we need to change them?”
“You mean this ground film?” The worker recalled the confidentiality clause. The company did not require the new ground film to be kept confidential. After all, this is a product that will be put on the market for sale, so there is no need to keep it confidential. He slowly replied:
“This is the new type of mulch.”
“Oh? Is there any difference?” Su Man touched the mulch curiously and found that there was not much difference from the old mulch.
“It’s very different. This is a biodegradable carbon source mulch.”
Suman chatted with the farm workers for a while before she understood the situation of this new type of mulch film.
Omar, who was eagerly waiting, asked, “Suman, is there anything special about this mulch?”
“This is a new type of biodegradable mulch film, and I heard it is made of inulin.”
“Degradable?”
“Wait a minute…what did you say? This mulch is made of sugar?”
Everyone was discussing it at once.
Suman was also very surprised just now, so she repeated it several times to confirm: “Yes, it is made of a kind of sugar extracted from chrysanthemum.”
Ali looked at a pile of mulch rolls not far away with a look of disbelief, and then muttered to himself: “Is Seris rich enough to use sugar to make mulch?”
“It seems that this kind of sugar cannot be absorbed by the human body, and it is a by-product of industrial production, so the cost is very low.” Suman also stated some of the questions he had just asked.
In fact, inulin is indeed very cheap. At present, Hailufeng Company has planted more than 3 million mu of rubber grass farms in the Zhelimu area, and can obtain hundreds of thousands of tons of inulin every year. Part of it is used as food raw materials, and most of the rest is taken away to refine polylactic acid plastic.
Omar still had doubts: “Suman, is this plastic film really biodegradable?”
“It should be possible, right?” Su Man was not too sure. After all, he had only heard it from others.
Ali was also puzzled: “But why change this plastic film? Just because it is biodegradable?”
Su Man reorganized part of what he had just heard, and then slowly explained: “That’s not the case. The main reason is that it is cheap and does not require the use of oil and coal as raw materials. In addition, this kind of plastic decomposes in the soil and can replenish the carbon in the soil.”
“Oh? Cheap?” Omar became interested.
Although Egypt is located near West Asia and North Africa, two of the world’s major oil and gas producing regions, its actual oil and gas reserves are very small, not enough for its own use.
If it hadn’t taken back the management rights of the Suez Canal, coupled with the considerable amount of remittances received every year, Egypt’s life would have been even more difficult. Of course, their economy is not much better now.
After all, the population carrying capacity of the Nile Valley and the Nile Delta is limited.
Egypt’s current population has reached 120 million, requiring a huge amount of food every year. Even if the average annual per capita food consumption is 200 kilograms, at least 24 million tons of food will be needed.
However, Egypt can only produce 9 to 10 million tons of wheat, 7 to 8 million tons of corn, and about 5 million tons of rice each year.
Even in a good year, it is only about 23 million tons.
An even more difficult problem is that Egyptians mainly eat flatbread, and a large part of the corn is used as feed.
This has resulted in Egypt needing to import at least 10 million tons of wheat each year to produce flour to fill the domestic flour gap.
You should know that according to the United Nations standards, 250 kilograms of food per person per year is the basic food ration line, which can only meet basic survival needs; if you want to reach the safety line, you need to at least reach 400 kilograms of food per person per year.
The amount of grain produced by Egypt is less than 200 kilograms per capita for food each year. If it does not import grain, it will be doomed.
This is also the fundamental reason why Egyptian grain trading companies would withstand the pressure and seek cheap grain from Seris in the face of rising international grain prices.
Their foreign exchange reserves are limited and their income expectations are not high, so any fluctuation in food prices is very important to them.
Therefore, Omar and others are very sensitive to the prices of agricultural products and agricultural inputs.
“Alas! What a pity! That kind of Senzu soybean can be grown in the desert, but Seris does not allow the export of technology and seeds.” Omar sighed.
Ali also looked depressed: “Indeed, if the Senzu beans can be promoted in Egypt, maybe we can get rid of the food crisis.”
“Manager, why don’t you think anyone has sneaked the seeds out of Seris?” another entourage whispered.
Omar’s mouth drooped: “Haha, how do you know there is none?”
“But there is no news of Senzu beans being grown in other areas?”
Omar speculated: “After all, they stole the seeds. How dare they plant them openly? I guess those Southeast Asian countries must have obtained the seeds and have planted them secretly.”
His guess was not wrong.
Hongsavady, Annan and Lan Xang, which border Seris, were the first regions to obtain the seeds of the Senzu soybean through smuggling, followed by Siam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Java, India and other countries that obtained the seeds of the Senzu soybean indirectly.
Through Southeast Asia, it further spread to the whole world.
However, they did not find a serious problem.
That is the batch of smuggled Senzu soybean seeds, which is very large in scale.
Because all of this was done by Hailufeng Company itself, which secretly exported tens of thousands of tons of Senzu soybean seeds to Southeast Asia through several shell organizations.
These “secret exports” began in October last year and have been sold every month. Hailufeng Company has earned more than ten billion yuan through this method.
Of course, making money is just a byproduct.
Because these seeds have been added with additives by Hailufeng Company, as long as they are planted locally, the specific root rot fungi hidden in the seed coating will quickly spread in the local soil.
Obviously this was intentional by Hailufeng Company. After all, Jiang Miao knew very well that no matter how strictly the border was guarded, there would always be someone who could take a few seeds out.
Instead of passively defending, it is better to take the initiative.
The method of Hailufeng Company is that I send out the seeds myself first. The reason is that these seeds have been supplemented with substances. If these supplemented seeds are planted in any area without using specific medicated coatings, the soybeans will be infected by root rot fungi when they grow to bloom, and then die on a large scale.
What’s even more terrifying is that these root rot fungi will exist in the local soil for a long time, specifically targeting the genes of Senzu soybeans, creating a special attack effect.
The first batch of “foreign users” who planted Senzu soybeans were completely ruined, and only harvested a large area of ​​withered and rotten Senzu soybean vines.
The front agency of Hailufeng Company is also exporting this added soybeans to Southeast Asia from Guangxi and Yunnan provinces.
Those who have been cheated out of all their money can do nothing about those shell organizations. After all, this kind of thing is a one-sided affair.
This has also successfully destroyed the underground market for smuggling seeds to Southeast Asia. After all, the “customers” in Southeast Asia now don’t know whether these seeds have any problems.
This is a bit like the flowers and seedlings in Suxian back then.
Those who have been cheated will have an unforgettable memory of the flowers and seedlings marked with Suxian production area and shipped from Suxian.
The Hailufeng Company deliberately blocked the way for the smugglers, leaving them with no way out. The purpose of maliciously releasing problematic items is to discredit the entire underground smuggling channel.
Anyway, if you dare to ask for it, I dare to ship it.
As for the problem with the goods?
Sorry, our company does not provide after-sales service. If you have the guts, come and sue me.
After scamming over ten billion, the number of customers in Southeast Asia became fewer and fewer. Of course, there were still some newbies or guys without information channels who continued to come here, and then were harvested by the downline sales staff of those shell companies.
When it comes to these customers, Hailufeng Company is ruthless in cutting their profits.
However, after being cheated a few more times, these people will realize their mistake and probably won’t be fooled again.
This operation achieved three goals with one stone. It not only made money, but also suppressed underground smuggling and spread the special root rot fungus to the soil around the world.
Even if we stop tampering with the seed coating of Senzu beans in the future, those ordinary Senzu beans without special protective seed coatings will also die.
Of course, this root rot fungus has another major use, which is to accelerate the decay of the underground tubers of soybeans.
If the Senzu soybeans in an area are not planned to be planted any more, specific root rot inhibitors can be sprayed to allow the root rot fungi to quickly rot the tubers buried underground, thereby achieving the goal of quickly creating artificial black soil.
Omar and others were unaware of the inside story and thought that they could get the Senzu soybean seeds and plant them abroad.
But this matter probably won’t be kept secret for long.
After all, many people or companies who have been cheated will definitely be furious and deliberately expose the matter.
But it doesn’t matter, because Hailufeng Company’s goal has been achieved.
As for secretly researching the composition of seed coatings, some people are indeed doing it, but unfortunately they are destined to have difficulty succeeding in a short period of time because the seed coatings of Hailufeng Company are specially made according to the soil and climate of each location.
Unless someone can grow Senzu soybeans inside a completely disinfected greenhouse, they will not be able to withstand the special root rot fungi that are everywhere.
However, growing Senzu soybeans in a completely disinfected greenhouse would probably cost too much.
Of course, there is another way to obtain Senzu soybeans, which is to use genetic modification technology to create genetically modified soybeans that are resistant to special root rot fungi.
This is also what many European and American agricultural companies are doing secretly.
After agricultural companies in Europe and the United States discovered that the directly planted Senzu soybeans were rotting and dying in large numbers, they changed their strategy and planned to obtain a second-generation Senzu soybean with better disease resistance through hybridization and genetic modification.
However, they obviously underestimated Jiang Miao’s terrifying power.
It’s not that genetic modification and hybrid breeding cannot be carried out.
Instead, Jiang Miao selected many proteins in the Senzu soybeans that had special defects but no obvious problems. The defects represented by these recessive genes can easily be turned into dominant genes during hybrid breeding, and by then there will be many defects.
If the other party uses genetic modification technology, he also has ways to deal with it.
Because the defective recessive genes are mainly concentrated in soybean protein, in general, the anti-fungal transgenic fragment needs to be inserted into the gene group of the protein part.
As long as they insert the transgenic fragment, they will destroy the structure of the original gene group, causing some hidden genes to start to have problems, such as a rapid decrease in soybean protein content, a decrease in photosynthesis efficiency, inability to pod, inability to bloom, and inability to develop root tubers.
Jiang Miao deliberately selected varieties with hidden defects in order to prevent someone from using Senzu soybeans as the mother plant to cultivate the second generation of Senzu soybeans.
If agricultural companies in Europe and the United States are willing to continue research for more than a decade and continue to adopt genetic modification and gene editing technologies, they may be able to create some barely usable varieties.
I don’t know if they can withstand the coming wave of the times.
After all, climate change in Europe and the United States is becoming more and more drastic, extreme weather occurs frequently, and ordinary crops can hardly withstand such sudden climate changes.
The reason why the planting area of ​​​​Sensou soybeans in China has increased rapidly is, on the one hand, the excellent performance of senzu soybeans, and on the other hand, it is also to cope with the climate crisis.
Although the current climate change in East Asia is not as severe as that in North America and Europe, it does not mean that the future will be smooth sailing.
After all, the many Little Ice Age events in East Asian history have caused serious consequences.
For example, the recent Little Ice Age event in the late Ming Dynasty, the drought that lasted for more than ten years in the North China Plain and the Loess Plateau, the freezing of the Yangtze River from time to time, and the floods and typhoon disasters in the southeast coast, there are basically not many places that have not encountered natural disasters.
Therefore, after observing the sudden climate changes in North America and Europe, China felt that it could not be taken lightly and began to step up efforts to promote the cultivation of agricultural products such as Senzu soybeans and Senzu soybeans.
After all, soybeans do not need water, but if wheat and rice have no water, they will basically have no harvest.
If we really encounter large-scale drought and severe temperature drops for several consecutive years, crops such as Senzu beans, which can be used as food, oil and feed, can at least maintain the domestic food supply, and there will be no need to seek imports from abroad.
As the world’s second most populous country, if the world really encounters a once-in-a-millennium climate disaster, it can completely suppress the surge in global food prices by not importing food.
Although agricultural companies in Europe and the United States have always been unhuman, Seris still has to have some dignity.
For example, this time when Omar and others came to seek grain imports, COFCO Group did not intend to cheat them. As long as they were willing to purchase and showed sincerity, let alone 1 million tons of wheat per year, even 10 million tons of wheat per year would not be a problem.
As for the countries in West Asia and North Africa that are relatively rich in oil and natural gas resources, it is also possible to negotiate with them to purchase food.
As long as they are willing to barter, COFCO Group does not mind taking their natural gas and oil shares and then reselling them to domestic oil companies or other regions in need.
This special trading model that avoids the US dollar and the euro may become the choice of many regions in the next period of time.
After all, the value of the US dollar and the euro is not very stable now, and the global trade system they have built is on the verge of collapse. Many regions are really worried and dare not stockpile US dollars and euros casually. Instead, they continue to purchase precious metals internationally as a strategic reserve.

Người mua: Newking, 13/03/2025 22:15