Kempner gushes about the benefits of pickup trucks as he drives, and the benefits of his car. And constantly instigated Link and Neil to customize a car to play with.

Link could tell he was a pretty avid pickup enthusiast. And he did get interested in this kind of custom car. Including today, he has been followed by a car twice. One was murder, and this time it was not known what the other party's purpose was.

But in any case, if you are in the same situation, if you have a car that can protect well, it is much better for him in terms of safety.

And he can't always let bodyguards escort him and his family when they travel. Either he or Jessica always had a time to drive out on their own. Regardless of whether anyone deliberately wants to deal with him in the future, American society is not safe for the public. Who knows if a stray bullet will suddenly come from there?

He listened to Kempner talk about the benefits of a purpose-built car. It doesn't matter to him that the car is full of equipment he likes, the car has good performance, etc.

What impressed him the most was that the bulletproof steel plate and armored chassis can not only prevent bullets and explosive bombs, but also increase the weight of the body, and will not suffer when colliding with other similar vehicles. If he can have a good enough car, if he is ambushed in the car, it can improve the safety factor somewhat.

He wondered if he could customize a few for himself. A sedan used for business entertainment, two cars that are usually driven. He gave one and gave Jessica one.

Kempner didn't stop his recommendation until the car stopped: "Welcome to Holland Manor." ”

Link discovers that Holland lives alone, it turns out that he is still unmarried after his divorce a few years ago, and his only child lives with his mother. So he lived alone.

The whole villa is not very large, with a wooden structure with a teak floor, a sofa and some furniture with carpets underneath. So they need to switch diagonal doors.

The light inside the villa is dim and there are plenty of paintings in the living room. "I got rich too late, so I had to buy paintings by a new generation of painters," Kennap said. You know those antiques are just too expensive. ”

In addition to paintings, Link also saw a variety of artistic decorations, some porcelain or something, and the whole living room was quite elegantly arranged. It's simply not recognizable that this is the home of Texans who love pickups.

They walked into the small parlor inside the living room and beckoned them to sit down. The furnishings here are very different from the living room. If the living room is an artistic place, it is like a hunter's residence.

In the corner of the wall there is a specimen of a brown bear with teeth and claws, and on a high table there is a specimen of a fox lying in a pretentious sleep, and on the wall there are several specimens of deer's head. The floor is covered with several African hyena skins. And all the furniture is made from the horns of Texas longhorns. There are also two gun racks on the wall, with dozens of long and short guns on display.

Link couldn't help but smile when he saw this parlor and said, "oo~, this looks like a druid's room." ”

"Haha! I'm not a druid. I'm just a hunter. Of course, I didn't hunt this bear. I bought a bear skin from someone and made a specimen. But I hunted the deer heads and hyena skins. ”

He beckoned the two of them to sit down, took out a bottle of whiskey and asked, "Drink?" Seeing that both of them nodded, he took some ice from the ice bucket and poured three glasses of wine.

After dividing the wine between the two, he said to Link, "Link, I have to thank you for coming to Texas. I know you're not free right now. Maybe you're wondering why I'm asking for an interview with you. ”

Link laughed and said, "Isn't it because of the amaranth?"

Kemponah laughed and said, "It's really because of the amaranth." You know, the amaranth grows in my pasture every year, and it's all contiguous. By the way, I have some photos here. ”

As he spoke, he took out a remote control from the table and showed the prepared slideshow.

Link saw a few dense barranths in the meadows on the screen hanging from the wall. The yellow-green spikes of Amaranth longum look very pleasing to watch, and if this is the spike of sorghum or something, maybe the yield will be quite high.

"Here's a picture of the pasture, there's a whole pasture. Because these weeds are too numerous and dense, it is simply impossible to remove them manually. ”

Link was surprised by this, since this was a ranch, it shouldn't have been like this.

Because of the weeds that affect the pasture's harvesting, the cowboy will definitely be the first to get rid of it: "How did this come about? I mean, that's too many." ”

"A lot indeed. That's mainly because there are some oil wells in the Holland Ranch, which grow near the wells and no one cares about them at all. And there wasn't a lot of grass before the ranch, and the ranch owner didn't care, but when I bought the ranch and built an irrigation system for the ranch, the weed suddenly broke out. And there are often strong winds here, and their seeds can spread throughout the pasture. ”

He pulled up a photo of a cotton field and said, "Look, this amaranth has added a lot of cost to my cotton planting." ”

Link saw that the cotton fields that had bloomed in the photo were also dense with white and yellow-green spikes. He nodded and said, "It must be tricky." ”

Kempner put down the remote and said, "It's tricky indeed. It makes it impossible for me to harvest the grass because the animals will poison it if they eat it. Cotton fields are also difficult to harvest mechanically because their seeds cannot be stripped from the cotton after they become entangled. Also, they have increased my ranch irrigation and fertilizer costs a lot. ”

Amaranth can find one to one and a half meters, needs a lot of nutrients, and has a strong transpiration effect on water.

"So you're going to use the amaranth virus?"

"Yes, because I want to turn the whole ranch into an organic farm. "Kampuna is very straightforward. "And I don't really believe in those herbicides now. Maybe the first year can be useful, but after a few years it might be a different kind of super weed. And it also pollutes my farmland. ”

Link nodded in understanding, but he didn't understand a little: "Cotton should be organic too?"

Neil suddenly said: "Actually, cotton fiber is also a food. It can be used as an ingredient for ice cream. In addition, cottonseed oil is also one of the oils used in fast food restaurants. Moreover, clothes made of organic cotton are also in vogue. ”

Link smiled and said, "It's me who is lonely and unheard." ”

Kempner pinched the bottom of the glass and said, "Of course organic crops are good." It stands for health and sustainability. ”

"You seem to be missing a safe!"

Kempner laughs, "If you want to say that organic is healthier than non-organic, I agree. But when it comes to safety, that's just the psychology of the public. In the United States, organic foods that have been recalled due to infection with Vibrio haemolyticus and Listeria monocytogenes in recent years have a similar ratio of non-organic. Therefore, it is not necessary to say that organic crops are safer. ”

Link nodded and said, "I think so, too." But organic food is indeed more popular with high-income people. That's what the market needs! Aren't you also going to convert the ranch into an organic farm?"

Kempner shook his head and said, "Actually, I plan to reduce the use of pesticides as much as possible. But I don't think organic food is truly sustainable. So, I want to convert to an organic farm, but if I produce it according to organic standards, the yield of my farm will drop significantly. That's not normal. ”

He paused and said, "Because of the standards of organic food, the production of organic food is destined to be unable to meet the needs of all human beings. It is sacrificing the fundamental interests of human beings to please animals and the environment. When human beings lack food, the development of the whole human race will stagnate, so what is sustainable development? In fact, the self-healing ability of the environment far exceeds the damage caused by agriculture under organic standards. So I don't think we should worry too much about the deterioration of the environment and let the overall viability of human beings decline. In a completely different way, we can stop the deterioration of the environment and at the same time allow the land to produce enough products for human needs. ”

Link agrees with him. He believes that the so-called organic system in the United States has actually gone from one extreme to the other. Nowadays, non-organic agriculture pursues yield and low cost, and the damage to the environment is very serious. Organic food, on the other hand, is not only a food safety consideration, nor is it just an environmental protection consideration. It even includes the notion of vegans and animal protectors.

But what if he doesn't agree? If the 60,000 head of cattle raised on the Ozette Farm are not large enough because of the total area, the breeding density would already exceed the standard for organic food.

In fact, because of the abundant rainfall, the pasture can produce more than 100,000 cattle. And the pasture is large enough for a cow to occupy more than two acres of land. This area is much larger than the average land area occupied by many people. You know, in some big cities, it takes four or five hundred people to stand on one acre of land to accommodate that many people.

He smiled and said, "I don't agree with that standard either, but so what? The standard is the federal government's approval." And it is also recognized by many people. ”

Kempner took a sip of his wine and seemed to say to himself: "I have been to many countries in the past few years. I know that hundreds of thousands of people die every year in Africa from diseases caused by hunger or malnutrition. But there are those who hypocritically preach that animals should be slaughtered with dignity and should die without pain. That's what's called animal rights protection. ”

He smiled and added, "I've also been to China, which has four times the population of the United States. But there are not many more cases of bacterial poisoning because of food infections than in the United States. After I came back from China, I stopped eating vegetable salad. Because I suddenly found that vegetables must have a lot of bacteria, and no matter how much you wash them, you can't wash them all away. But when you cook it and eat it, it kills almost all bacteria. So production is not necessarily the only way to ensure food safety, our eating habits can also be. ”

Link nodded and said, "After my family hired a Chinese chef, I only ate salads occasionally. ”

"I also found that China's food safety labels are more abundant than those in Europe and the United States. The first is that there are no clear standards for the products grown and cultivated by ordinary farmers, and this accounts for a considerable proportion. The second is the production standard of farm enterprises, which is called pollution-free. That refers to the management standard of avoiding public harm to human society and reducing damage to the environment. The third is organic food, which is somewhat similar to the standards in Europe and the United States. And the last one is green food, but that's a way of doing business that Americans can't accept. They do not use any chemical fertilizers, but green manure made from fermented manure and weeds, and they do not use pesticides at all. That kind of farming method is not even affordable for the Chinese themselves. ”

Link didn't understand what he meant by that: "But this is America, isn't it?"