Ma Debao glanced at the cart full of licorice seeds, hesitated for a while, and then asked.
"Dad, can you really make money growing this thing?"
"nonsense!"
Seeing that his second son doubted himself, Li Jie couldn't help but roll up his sleeves and gave Ma Debao a shudder.
"Ouch."
Ma Debao was in pain, covering his head and looking at his father with aggrieved expression.
"Dad, why did you hit me?"
Li Jie gave him a very arrogant look and said threateningly: "What's wrong? No?"
"..."
Ma Debao lowered his head silently, not daring to look at his increasingly irritable father. While lowering his head, he muttered to himself.
'What's going on with dad these days? Why do you hit your forehead so often?'
Ma Debao remembers clearly that his father was still very talkative in the past. As long as he didn't make mistakes, he would hardly get beaten. But now, his father seems to be becoming more and more domineering.
"Little kid, don't you understand? Licorice is a treasure. It is not only a medicine, but also a feed and a natural food additive. It has a wide range of uses."
??
Medicine? Feed? Natural food additive?
Ma Debao wondered if he had a hearing problem. Why couldn't he understand a word of what his father said?
Looking at his son who had questions all over his head, Li Jie couldn't help but darken his face. This kid was really smart, but he didn't use it where it should be used.
I didn't pay much attention when I was in school. I was either thinking about playing or looking for wheat seedlings all day long.
Fortunately, this boy has not accomplished anything. At least he found a good daughter-in-law.
"Well, when the licorice grows, you will know whether it can make money."
As a master of traditional Chinese medicine, Li Jie, no one knows the value of licorice better than him. It can be said that about nine out of ten prescriptions of traditional Chinese medicine contain licorice.
Licorice is one of the most commonly used Chinese medicinal materials. Not only that, it is also one of the indispensable raw materials in Western medicine.
In addition, licorice can also be widely used in industrial fields and food fields.
Because of the above factors, the supply of licorice has been in a tight state for a long time. Today, more than half of the licorice on the domestic market is wild, and less than 20% is truly artificially cultivated.
However, limited by the harsh growth environment of licorice, there are not many wild licorice resources, and as the demand continues to increase, there are fewer and fewer licorice available for collection.
If there is no big gain in the historical trajectory, in a few years, the authorities will formally bring the mining of licorice under national management and explicitly prohibit random digging.
A policy cannot be promulgated without warning. The ban on indiscriminate picking of licorice also proves the scarcity of wild licorice resources in a sense.
Otherwise, there is no need for the official to issue a formal document.
Once the official officially issues this document, the market price of licorice will inevitably rise.
The planting period of licorice is very long, and it usually takes three to four years to harvest. If you want to catch up with this wave of price increases, you will definitely not be able to make arrangements in advance.
In addition, there is another important reason why Li Jie chose to grow licorice.
As early as the 1960s, domestic experts began to study the feasibility of artificially growing licorice. By the 1980s, the technical difficulties of artificially growing licorice had basically been overcome.
By the 1990s, artificial cultivation of licorice had already reached a certain scale. Although it had not yet taken off on a large scale, the choice of planting licorice at this time would not be too abrupt.
Before making the decision to plant licorice, Li Jie visited the surrounding medicinal markets. It is true that most of the licorice on the market is wild, but there are also artificially cultivated ones, but only a small proportion of them are artificial.
The reason is mainly because the farmer's technology is not up to standard and the growth cycle of licorice is too long. As a result, the medicinal properties of artificially cultivated licorice are not as good as those of wild ones.
The medicinal properties are not comparable, so the price is naturally lower, so not many farmers choose artificial breeding.
But none of these problems are problems for Li Jie.
In terms of medical skills, in this world, he is undoubtedly the one who stands at the top. Since ancient times, medicine has not been divided into different branches. The better the medical skills, the more proficient in pharmacology, and licorice is the most commonly used medicinal material. Li Jie is very fond of it.
That means it can't be cooked any more.
If you follow his method to grow licorice, the medicinal properties of the resulting licorice will not be much worse than those of wild licorice.
They were silent all the way until they arrived at Jintan Village. Before they even entered the village, they saw a large group of people standing at the entrance of the village.
As soon as everyone saw the tractor emitting black smoke, they immediately surrounded it.
"Call for water, thank you for your hard work,"
"Call Uncle Shui, are you cold?"
"Debao, isn't that licorice behind this?"
"Uncle Shui, I didn't go to that meeting before. Can you tell us how to grow licorice?"
…
Facing the questions raised by everyone, Li Jie stood up from the tractor and pressed down slightly with his hands.
"Cough, cough, calm down, calm down."
In an instant, the scene seemed to have pressed the pause button. It suddenly changed from extreme movement to extreme silence, and everyone closed their mouths.
Li Jie glanced at the silent crowd and couldn't help but nodded secretly. There were about ten people surrounding the scene. Most of them were his die-hard supporters, and most of them planned to plant licorice with him.
.
Now, unlike in the future, the era of large-scale artificial breeding of licorice has not yet begun. The vast majority of farmers do not know that licorice can be cultivated artificially, and they do not know the output scale and purchase price of licorice.
However, with Li Jie here, they really don't have to worry about these problems. They just know that if they follow Li Jie, they will definitely not suffer.
This is indeed the case.
Growing licorice is indeed a good business. Over the years, the purchase price of licorice has been rising year by year. In the 1970s, one kilogram only cost 2 cents, but now the price of one kilogram is around 10 yuan, which has skyrocketed by nearly 50 yuan.
ten times,
According to the planting method provided by Li Jie, the output per mu of land is about 800-1,000 kilograms. According to the price of 10 yuan per kilogram, the output value of each mu of land is about 8,000-10,000 yuan.
Excluding a series of comprehensive expenses such as the purchase of seeds, fertilizer costs, water fees, etc., the average annual income per mu of land is about 2,000 to 3,000 yuan. If ten acres are planted, then a farmer's income is 20,000 to 30,000 yuan.
Planting ten acres of land and earning an income of RMB 20,000 to RMB 30,000 is something that the villagers of Jintan Village cannot even imagine.
This is Li Jie. If anyone else had said this, he would have been drowned in the villagers' comments before he could even explain.
"Tomorrow at eight o'clock in the morning, we will have another meeting at home. Just like last time, we will mainly talk about licorice. People who are interested in growing licorice can go and listen. If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the meeting tomorrow."