Homo Sapiens

As Homo Sapiens Company launched its major initiative, eighty agricultural cooperatives were swiftly established. Soon, over thirty thousand farming households had joined, and that number was still growing.

The participation of these households brought Haitian Agriculture 270,000 acres of mountain land, 63,000 acres of paddy fields, 28,000 acres of dry fields, and 5,436 acres of fish ponds.

Of course, this amount of land was just a drop in the bucket.

After all, the Fernando Clan and the Lopez Clan were the true land barons.

Take the Lopez Clan’s home base, Panay Island, for example. The plantations they controlled there covered an enormous area of 1,736 square kilometers, equivalent to about one-seventh of the island’s total land.

Meanwhile, the Fernando Clan’s plantations in the southern part of Luzon Island covered a similarly vast area of around 2,245 square kilometers.

The total area of plantations and other agricultural lands controlled by these two clans throughout Luzon reached 5,571 square kilometers, equivalent to one-fiftieth of Luzon’s total area.

And that’s not to mention the smaller families and farming households affiliated with them.

Naturally, Haitian Agriculture had no intention of passing up such a huge swathe of land.

「On Panay Island.」

Led by the Lopez Clan’s local representative, Zhang Wei was inspecting the island. It boasted the second-largest area of rice paddies in all of Luzon and was primarily used to cultivate rice and sugarcane.

Currently, Luzon’s total domestic rice production was about 17 million tons, with a self-sufficiency rate of only 79%.

There was also an additional 10 million tons of corn.

Calculated against Luzon’s population of 102 million, a total grain output of 27 million tons amounted to roughly 260 kilograms per capita. This per capita yield should have been sufficient to ensure everyone had enough to eat.

The problem was that the staple food in Luzon was rice, with some wheat flour also being consumed, while the corn was grown for export.

Luzon produced about 27 million tons of grain annually, exported about 20 million tons, and imported about 8 to 9 million tons.

This created a deeply ironic situation.

Even after introducing hybrid rice from Huaguo, Luzon was still unable to achieve food self-sufficiency. The core reason was that the major landowners and merchants were unwilling to increase the acreage for rice cultivation; they preferred to grow corn, a crop the people of Luzon didn’t eat.

Then, these guys would collude with the ABCD companies to import cheap rice and wheat flour, selling it to urban residents at exorbitant prices to reap huge profits.

As for food security, what did that have to do with the major landowners and merchants?

On the contrary, they couldn’t wait for a food crisis to occur, as it would be the perfect opportunity to drive up prices.

Previously, the Fernando Clan and the Lopez Clan had also been part of this comprador-landlord system.

But now that Homo Sapiens Company had taken over the legacies of these two clans, if it continued to operate as before, it would be doing nothing more than serving as America’s lapdog.

Li Qingye often lamented that he wasn’t ruthless and cruel enough, making him seem out of step with the world.

’But why should I be the one to adapt to the world?’

’Why shouldn’t the world be the one to adapt to me?’

’As long as I’m powerful enough, the world will revolve around me.’

Haitian Agriculture’s current series of actions were all aimed at increasing Luzon’s food self-sufficiency rate and establishing a system of its own.

Panay Island had vast expanses of arable land, but the acreage dedicated to rice was less than that for sugarcane, primarily because sugarcane was so much more profitable.

"Kas," Zhang Wei said, wearing a straw hat and gazing out at the boundless paddy fields before him, "on our Panay Island lands, aside from the mountain plantations, how many acres are dedicated to rice paddies versus sugarcane fields?"

Kas Lopez took out a document. "82,731 hectares of sugarcane fields and 41,108 hectares of rice paddies."

Zhang Wei shook his head. "That’s not enough. The rice acreage is far too low. Convert 40,000 hectares of sugarcane fields to growing hybrid rice."

"Uh..." Kas swallowed hard, then ventured, "General Manager, the returns on rice are too low. If we increase the cultivation area, the market price this year will probably drop even lower. The company could lose money."

"So what if we lose money?" Zhang Wei scoffed. "We can afford it. Besides, you think sugarcane is some kind of guaranteed gold mine?"

As the General Manager of Haitian Agriculture, he knew full well that with the expansion of their sea farms and the diversification of transgenic Qilin Greens, they now had varieties rich in sucrose.

If it weren’t for the fact that eliminating sugarcane all at once would trigger a severe chain reaction in the market, he would have converted all of the remaining 40,000-plus hectares of sugarcane fields into rice paddies.

Currently, in cooperatives and plantations across the region, all arable land suitable for rice cultivation had been converted to grow vast quantities of hybrid rice. The planned cultivation area was slated to reach 300,000 hectares, with two harvests planned per year.

They projected a production of 2 million tons of rice this year. The plan was to first stabilize grain prices within their controlled territories by also purchasing a portion of the rice and corn from local farmers.

As for whether the ABCD companies would start a price war...

Given their track record, they would most likely engage in deliberate price dumping to try and destroy Haitian Agriculture’s rice industry.

But Zhang Wei wasn’t afraid. Haitian Agriculture could afford the losses. At worst, they could recoup them from other industries. For instance, the parent company had recently transferred the eel industry over to Haitian Agriculture.

At this point, Homo Sapiens Company itself was only responsible for R&D, process refinement, and the production of key raw materials.

For example, the eel sex hormones for the eel industry were part of a process controlled exclusively by Homo Sapiens Company headquarters; subsidiaries were not allowed to touch it.

Faced with Zhang Wei’s assertive stance, Kas could only bite the bullet and agree.

Zhang Wei didn’t leave Panay Island right away. He needed to take a boat to the Cuoyu Islands, situated in the waters west of Panay.

The Cuoyu Islands were over ninety kilometers from Panay Island. Although their land area wasn’t large, the surrounding shallow seas covered a vast ten thousand square kilometers.

This small archipelago was also within the Lopez Clan’s sphere of influence. Kas led Zhang Wei and his group to the main island of the archipelago—Cuoyu Island.

The specialists accompanying them began testing the salinity, temperature, and depth of the surrounding waters, as well as mapping the areas covered by coral reefs.

The island’s mayor, Mingkai Lopez, briefed Zhang Wei on the situation in the Cuoyu Islands.

"Do the hydrological conditions here meet our requirements?" Zhang Wei asked the accompanying marine aquaculture expert.

The expert nodded. "They meet the cultivation requirements for Qilin Greens. As long as we avoid some of the coral reef zones, we can build floating island-style sea farms here."

The floating island-style sea farms Haitian Agriculture planned to build were, in fact, fixed floating islands constructed in areas where the water depth did not exceed 20 meters.

As for their construction, that would require the Coral Cement previously intended for the Qingye Group. A specially formulated version of this Coral Cement could set rapidly in seawater and was extremely resistant to salt, alkali, and corrosion.

Coral Building Materials had already secretly converted a cement plant into a production base for Coral Cement, with an approximate annual output of 2.4 million tons.

After evaluating the data at hand, the marine aquaculture expert reported to Zhang Wei, "Based on my estimates, the total area suitable for conversion throughout the Cuoyu Islands’ waters is approximately 800 to 1,000 square kilometers."

Zhang Wei thought for a moment before giving his orders. "Alright, designate a 50-hectare section of the sea as a test farm. Researcher Chen, you will be in charge of the project here."

"No problem."

This was an experimental project. After all, there was still a significant amount of coastal tidal flats and saline-alkali land available, so there was no immediate need to push into the shallow seas.

The technology for shallow-water sea farms, and even deep-sea ones, was being developed as a strategic reserve that would surely be needed in the future.

In addition to establishing the experimental sea farm project in the Cuoyu Islands, Zhang Wei also arranged for the construction of a local garbage recycling station and a gas distribution station. This latter project wasn’t for Haitian Agriculture, but was commissioned by Jade Energy.

As a small, underdeveloped archipelago with a population of only about 27,000, basic services like power and water were practically nonexistent.

But once large-scale shallow-water sea farms could be built here in the future, the local economy was bound to take off. Jade Energy and Coral Construction were already preparing to move in and seize the first-mover advantage.