After Andrei and Marina's wedding, Yuri drove me and Danya back to the youth apartment. On the way, Yuri said that he studied agriculture, and that he used to be a researcher at the Novosibirsk Regional Agricultural Research Institute, and now he is a leader in a department of the Department of Agriculture. After introducing his work, Yuri said with some self-deprecation: "The agricultural sector is the least valued sector in the government, and agriculture in both the Soviet Union and Russia is a mess." I think that when I first learned agriculture, I was influenced by an ancient Chinese saying that my father once said, which called the people to take food as the sky. However, after joining the work, I realized that the Soviet government did not attach importance to the development of agriculture at all, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union had a great deal to do with the backwardness of agriculture caused by the Soviet government's erroneous decision on agricultural development. "I just listened today to Tamaz's views on the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was caused by a variety of intricate political and economic factors, the wrong decision of the Soviet leadership and the strict detachment of the CPSU from the masses, the infiltration and intervention of Western forces, the arms race with the United States, and the wrong war in Afghanistan. Now I suddenly heard Yuri say that the collapse of the Soviet Union had a lot to do with agricultural backwardness, and it happened that we wanted to develop a vegetable and fruit project, so I really wanted to hear the opinion of this agricultural official, so I asked Yuri to explain the reasoning.

Maybe it's because I've always been depressed and can't talk about it.,Seeing that someone is interested in this topic.,Yuri opened the conversation endlessly.。 "Peng, you know what? During the Tsarist period, Russia was the world's largest grain exporter. It is the export of agricultural products that historically guarantees Russia's foreign exchange earnings and finances the import of machinery and equipment. In the sixties, agriculture in the former Soviet Union could also meet the needs of the country. However, this situation changed in the sixties, when the discovery of huge oil and gas fields in Western Siberia in the mid-sixties coincided with the rise of world oil prices several times. At that time, for every ruble invested in the oil and gas industry in Western Siberia, after three or four years, it was possible to recover thirty or forty rubles in profits. Such rapid and huge gains have no precedent in the history of the world economy, and thanks to this wealth accumulation effect, the Soviet Union received huge foreign exchange reserves for oil exports. The economic situation of the USSR improved without any economic reforms, it was possible to purchase large quantities of advanced foreign equipment and consumer goods, and it also secured the financial basis for the arms race with the United States. Based on this pattern, the Soviet government passed the first resolution on the purchase of large quantities of grain abroad in the sixties, and immediately began to reduce grain production, and the Soviet Union changed from self-sufficiency in grain to a grain importer. And gradually became the world's largest food importer, which gave rise to a series of huge and intractable economic problems. Had it not been for the export of oil, the food problem might well have become catastrophic in the seventies of the twentieth century. Neither gold mining, nor the export of timber and cotton, nor foreign borrowing, can guarantee a steady allocation for the import of agricultural products. Under these circumstances, the food crisis can only be prevented if large oil fields continue to be developed and exploited in Western Siberia and large quantities of oil are exported for foreign exchange. ”

Yuri sighed at this point and continued: "During this period, due to the high degree of urbanization and industrialization of the Soviet Union, the urban population increased massively, and the state had to pay a large amount of foreign exchange for the purchase of grain and foodstuffs abroad. The unsolvable food problem shook the foundations of the Soviet economy. The basis of the decline of Soviet agriculture was formed in the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century. The Soviet Union chose the Stalinist model, which completely eliminated the individual economy, organized mass production, and completely deprived the peasants of material benefits. Khrushchev also recognized the crisis caused by the decline in agriculture and tried to carry out reforms, but none of his attempts went beyond the rigid management model practiced by Stalin. Agriculture became the most conservative sector of the Soviet economy, and it was not even allowed to discuss the feasibility of transferring agricultural production to the market. Because the government was unwilling and unwilling to implement painful but necessary market-oriented reforms in agricultural production, this situation led to the complete collapse of the Soviet market for agricultural products in the late eighties. If it weren't for the instability in the Middle East in the seventies, which led to the rapid rise in oil prices, and the huge foreign exchange earnings made by the Soviet Union, I think the Soviet Union would probably have collapsed twenty years ahead of schedule because of the food problem. The Soviet government mistakenly believed that the price of oil would continue to rise and that the price would remain at a high point, but what the Soviet government did not expect was that the world economy began to experience a series of recessions from the eighties, accompanied by a decline in oil prices, when the Soviet Union was extremely dependent on oil and gas export revenues to maintain its economy, and the decline in oil and gas prices hit the Soviet Union hard. During the Gorbachev perestroika, the Soviet Union fell into a vicious circle of increasing production to maintain petrodollar revenues, which caused an imbalance in the country's economic structure. More than half of the Soviet Union's foreign exchange earnings depended on oil exports, while more than half of its foreign exchange expenditures were spent on imports of grain and foodstuffs. Thus, the state of the Soviet economy directly depended on the fluctuations in world oil prices and grain prices. By the mid-eighties, the price of oil had fallen by half, which made the Soviet economy seriously overdrawn. The bottomless pit of war in Afghanistan was still going on, tens of millions of tons of grain needed to be imported, and the Soviet government could only rely on foreign debt to solve it. Gorbachev also saw this crisis, but he was powerless to do so. Therefore, I very much appreciate your reform and opening up in China, which has broken the big pot of rice, ensured the material interests of the peasants, and increased the enthusiasm of the peasants in developing agriculture. I am very envious of the agricultural achievements of your country, which fed the population of the Soviet Union several times with less than half of the territory of the Soviet Union, and on this basis, China has developed today. If the Soviet government had paid attention to agriculture at an early stage, the Soviet Union would not have had the economic crisis before its collapse, and the Soviet Union would not have collapsed, but would definitely have become the world's number one superpower. ”

After Yuri finished speaking, he paused and then continued: "After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's agricultural development is still in a state of stagnation, the price of oil has not risen, and now Russia can only live on foreign debt, so you can also see that today's Russia is poor in materials and food shortage, and the ruble has depreciated and prices have skyrocketed. Even today's wedding of Andre and Marina was very simple and shabby because the price was too high, and the income of our whole family was not high. Now most of the collective farms in Russia are in a state of desertion, and the peasants are just growing potatoes and onions on their small plots to solve their own food and clothing problems. ”

After listening to Yuri's words, I thought to myself, the saying that the people take food as the sky is really the most simple truth in the world, and if a country can't even solve the problem of feeding its people, it will inevitably decline. Russia's backward agriculture is also an opportunity, so I told Yuri that we want to import vegetables and fruits from China, Yuri pondered for a while and said: "This is a very good idea, I heard that there are many varieties of vegetables and fruits in China and they are very cheap, but the distance is too long, transportation is a big problem, even if the cost of transporting it will be very high, and there is also the problem of keeping it fresh, if it rots and deteriorates on the road, it will be very much more than worth the loss." I have a plan, you should consider developing agriculture in Novosibirsk, the soil here is very good, you can find the farms here to cooperate, and introduce your advanced Chinese agricultural technology and agricultural experts. I'm very interested in your greenhouse farming technology, you can bring it in, take advantage of the cheap natural gas resources and the unemployed farmers here, I think it will be better than you bringing in vegetables and fruits. If you're interested, I can help you contact the farm and go through the formalities. ”

Danya, who had been listening to Yuri silently, said: "Peng, if you want to find a farm, consider the farm over there in my house, which has been abandoned for several years, and my father used to be the manager of the farm, and now he has a bakery at home, he can help you." ”

I thought for a moment and said, "I think this is very good, and there is a lot of room for development in Russian agriculture. But I want to talk to Vanya, after all, our company is not an agricultural company, we also need to find professionals, there will be too many things involved, if you just ship vegetables and fruits, it is relatively simple. Tanya, I'll go back to your house with you in a few days, and I really want to go to the Russian countryside. When Tanya heard this, she immediately said excitedly: "Okay, okay, when the time comes, I'll show you the land of Siberia and feel the Russian sauna."