Chapter 542: The Unlucky One

  Chapter 530 Unlucky Egg

Affected by the agricultural crisis, farmers in all European countries were having a hard time. Families with savings were fine, while those without had to go into debt.

Food is home-grown, living expenses are not big, the biggest expense, is the government tax, the vast majority of the region’s agricultural taxes are not heavy, find a way to get together also have, really no money can also owe.

Some countries also reduced or waived taxes, or accepted in-kind tax offsets. Only a few farmers went bankrupt, and most of them got by.

If the agricultural crisis had ended in 1873, it would have been the equivalent of a year of bumper harvests, leading to a drop in prices, and would not have shaken Europe’s small-farm economy.

Obviously, this was not to be. the spring of 1873 began with a renewed enthusiasm for production. In addition to the decrease in the area under grain cultivation in some countries and regions, there were many regions where the area under grain cultivation increased rather than decreased.

It is not that the farmers do not know that the price of grain is not good and the profit of growing grain is not high, but it is mainly because they have been accustomed to this kind of cultivation for many generations, and if they do not grow grain, they do not know what to grow.

Austria is considered to be a country with a large reduction in food production capacity, and the farms under the state-owned agricultural companies have been ordered by Franz to stop planting food and uniformly switch to cash crops.

If it was more than ten years ago, this executive order alone could have gotten Austria through the agricultural crisis.

Unfortunately, today is not the same as in the past, many people have joined the land redemption, so many years down the Vienna government holds the state-owned arable land area has been less than 3% of the country’s arable land area.

In pursuit of higher returns, agricultural companies actually grow very little food, mostly cash crops, except for a small amount of food rations for their own consumption.

These cash crops also do not need to sell out, the agricultural company itself has a processing plant, playing the production + processing, integrated agriculture.

Not only the state-owned agricultural companies, but also many of the great nobles were in this mode of development. In the face of profit, everyone’s ability to learn is very strong.

Everyone is based on market demand, the first time to adjust the planting mode, relatively speaking this kind of integrated agriculture, by the agricultural crisis impact is small.

The Ministry of Agriculture had originally planned that food production would fall by 5.2% to 8.6% this year, but the reality turned out to be very face-saving. Even though the government has already made a lot of publicity and called on the people to cut down the area of food planting, the result is that the big data at the end of the spring plowing told them that they thought it was too beautiful.

Spring plowing in 1873, the Austrian grain acreage fell only 1.3%, which is the result of the Vienna government fine-tuning.

The data may not be accurate, in such a short period of time, the Vienna government has not been able to do a comprehensive statistics, this is only a sample survey results.

Franz did not think that this error would be much, even if the error is up to double, that is only 2.6%, more than double the booking target.

That was the result in Austria, so other countries could be imagined. Not to mention the reduction in production, Franz felt that they did not increase the area planted with food, even if the government regulation was strong.

The agricultural crisis will continue, Franz is prepared for it, which is also planned by the government in Vienna.

Using the agricultural crisis to shock the agricultural production system of European countries, to promote the land annexation movement in various countries, creating a large number of bankrupt farmers.

Colonial Ministry are ready to plan in the next fifteen years, a total of 10 million mainland European immigrants accepted, to provide labor for the development of the Austrian colonies.

This is also no way out of the matter, the German region wants to emigrate has long been lulled away, Austria itself is almost the same.

From the peak of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants per year, to the present Austrian mainland annual immigrants produced so 40,000 to 50,000, the German Federation will be able to provide about five or six thousand immigrants each year, the other countries and regions of Europe will probably contribute 20,000 to 30,000 immigrants.

Of course, the entire continent of Europe every year immigration is not only so little, the problem is that these people can not all go to the Austrian colonies, Britain, France, Holland and Pussy are in Europe to fool immigrants. There is also the group of countries in the Americas, also the choice of immigrants.

Every year, 70,000 to 80,000 immigrants, to spread Austria’s more than 20 million square kilometers of colonies, not even a wave can not hit up.

In this respect, Franz snubbing the German Confederation and Prussia to open up overseas colonies is also snatching immigrants from himself.

Looking at European countries, the only one left with the most potential to become an immigrant-exporting power is Russia, and the potential of the German region has basically been drained.

The agricultural crisis was the best means to do so, and Alexander II’s great openings did solve the land problem of the peasants.

But the Tsarist government’s emancipation of the serfs was so short that these people did not have time to accumulate wealth before they encountered an agricultural crisis.

In terms of risk resistance, these Russian peasants, who had just acquired land and were still in debt to the government, were undoubtedly the lowest.

The land was newly reclaimed, with relatively lower yields; Russia’s natural environment was bad, and in many places, only one season could be planted, making the cost of food cultivation higher; limited by transportation, it was difficult to create economic value as food was difficult to transport.

Preliminary estimates suggest that the agricultural crisis of 1872 created tens of thousands of bankrupt farmers in the Russian Empire. Such a small number of people, naturally, could not make waves, just out of the Russian industry and commerce to be absorbed.

It was a long time before they wanted to absorb the emigrants? Only if there was a massive wave of bankruptcies, exceeding the absorption limit of Russian industry, could there be a mass exodus.

Otherwise, it would be brain-dead to go to Russia and steal labor from the native Russian capitalists. They are the snakes of the earth, and they keep people to learn to be human again.

This program did not include Austria itself. Although with the development of time, in order to reduce the cost of production, land annexation is the best choice, Franz is not prepared to do so in the mainland.

Stability overrides everything, in front of “stability”, everything else has to take a back seat. The best option is to boil the frog in warm water, and to have a subtle influence. Bankrupting farmers and increasing immigration is the next best thing.

Putting down the information in his hand, Franz looked at Holes and asked: “What is the Ministry of Agriculture going to do about the failure of the grain production reduction program?”

Unable to reduce output, then only increase consumption. Before this, the Vienna government had a plan to develop animal husbandry, which was already taking shape.

Not able to develop and grow, the main reason is still the market consumption capacity did not keep up. Compare the latter day kind of per capita meat consumption of more than a hundred kilograms of data, now Austria only reached one-third.

It is not that the people do not love to eat meat, the problem is that everyone’s income is limited, simply can not afford to eat meat. To be able to achieve enough bread is already a brilliant achievement of the Vienna government’s reform.

Franz promised to give compulsory school students additional meal program has been implemented, since the price of agricultural products fell, students have increased the weekly supply of 300 grams of pork.

Together with 550 grams of fish, 100 grams of chicken or goose, this intake is more than enough to meet the nutritional requirements. If the increase continues, it is not likely that Austria will be teeming with fat people.

The amount of meat per capita is actually a fallacy, usually averaged out. As far as Franz knew, the highest consumption of meat products in Austria was among sailors and fishermen, followed by capitalists and aristocrats.

It wasn’t that sailors and fishermen were richer, it was mainly because of the relative ease of obtaining meat products at sea, and probably the cheapest thing in their hands was fish, which in many cases was the staple food.

The amount of meat consumed by the population in coastal areas was, again, higher than inland. In the port of Venice, for example, where fish is less than one-tenth the price of beef, the main meat product for the commoners is fish.

If you go inland, this difference in price is not so great. Especially in the Hungarian steppe, where the price of beef was only five times that of fish, the populace’s beef consumption was relatively high.

This high is actually very limited, and most of the population still can’t eat with an open stomach. Even in Vienna, the most economically developed country, the annual per capita consumption of beef does not exceed 20 kilograms.

But Vienna’s per capita consumption of meat products has exceeded 85 kilograms, ranking in the top five of all cities, greatly pulling up the per capita level of Austria.

In terms of cost, actually increasing the amount of fishing is the cheapest way to increase the consumption of meat products by the population.

Many issues cannot be considered only in terms of cost, but also in terms of the knock-on effects. Blindly increase the supply of fish and meat, flush out the domestic livestock industry, that is not a joke, but has the potential to really happen.

The reason is just one word – poverty! For the vast majority of ordinary workers, cheapness is what matters, and it’s not like eating habits can’t be changed.

Minister of Agriculture Holes: “Your Majesty, the Ministry of Agriculture is prepared to promote livestock farming to increase food consumption while enriching the farmers’ tables.”

Franz heard the implication that it was at the expense of livestock farming. Once there is a huge increase in livestock farming, overcapacity in the livestock industry is about to appear.

However, the scale of farmers’ free-range farming is usually not too large, and if they can’t sell it then they will have to eat it themselves.

All in all, it is an artificial increase in food consumption. By the way, the price of meat products down, increase the amount of meat eaten by the public.

Only in this way, farmers engaged in animal husbandry farming, it is going to be a tragedy. Profits will inevitably be squeezed, and they may even lose money.

There is no way, there are always people whose interests will be jeopardized. Compared with the extensive agricultural industry, the scale of animal husbandry in Austria is much smaller, and the scale of the industry is even smaller.

This is only theoretically feasible, in practice there are many problems. After a few moments of contemplation, Franz shook his head: “The Ministry of Agriculture has had an in-depth investigation?

As far as I know, many farmers have the habit of breeding livestock, especially poultry farming more widely. Even if it is popularized, do farmers want to feed it with grain?

For example, if you raise geese, even if you don’t feed them grain, you can raise them on grass. Cattle and sheep are similar, if it is a small-scale farming, just feed grass can be the same.

In this way, the production of meat products has increased, but grain consumption may not be able to increase, what is the Ministry of Agriculture prepared to rely on to complete the program?”

Franz is not a master who is easy to fool, in his previous life he came out from the countryside. When he was a child, the economic conditions were not good, and no one in the family fed chickens, cows and pigs with grain.

Despite the fact that so much more labor needs to be invested, and the livestock will take longer to grow, everyone still insisted on it.

Comparing hearts to hearts, the economic conditions of Austrian farmers in this day and age are not much better, and everyone has only just had enough to eat for a few years, so saving food is almost an instinct.

If the economic conditions were better, then the Ministry of Agriculture’s program is not much of a problem to implement. If it is not possible, you can also use the grain to make wine.

Europe’s beer and wine consumption is large, liquor consumption is small, in addition to Russia, the vast majority of the European population is not interested in liquor.

Otherwise, Franz would have taken the grain to brew. Even if the market can not be consumed in a short period of time, it can be stored for a long time, the longer the storage time, the better the flavor.

Unfortunately, the most consumed beer is not suitable for long-term storage. White wine can be stored, but there is no customer. The Russians also have a surplus of food, people have long been making their own, there is no need for outsourcing.

With the current level of consumption in the country, Franz felt that burning the grain in a fire was also more cost-effective than using it on a large scale for brewing, or at least you could lose less money.

Minister of Agriculture Holls was dumbfounded that the carefully prepared program had such a big loophole. If implemented, the agricultural crisis has not been resolved, the animal husbandry crisis will be detonated again.

Now is the era of imperialism, can not solve the crisis how to do? The most commonly used method is naturally to transfer to the outside world. Reality is so cruel, this year the powers is this style.

Among the Great Powers, Austria is the one that pays the most attention to its appearance. But essentially Austria is still a member of the powers, now encountered a crisis, the Vienna government naturally can not help but want to find an unlucky egg to bear the loss.

(The end of this chapter)