Chapter 1332
Even Support Projects Need to Compete
Although the deputy director did not give Li Long a clear answer, he was quite impressed with Li Long's current performance. He said that Li Long's cooperative and drip irrigation planting were promising projects, and encouraged him to continue his efforts and make new contributions to the modernization of agricultural planting.
After the meeting concluded, the deputy director delivered a speech, affirming the proceedings and praising Professor Yang, Principal Yang, and others. He stated that although the drip irrigation project is still experimental, its widespread adoption is not out of reach, given the current situation.
He said that agricultural modernization requires a variety of experimental projects to explore the feasibility of applying various advanced technologies in agriculture.
This also serves as a reminder to the visiting experts and technicians that there are readily available professionals here; we should learn from each other, exchange ideas, and make new contributions to the modernization of agriculture in the autonomous region.
The tour group's lunch was arranged in the county seat, as it's only 5 kilometers away. The local township's logistical capabilities are limited, and relevant county departments hope to have more exchanges with leaders at all levels.
Those who went to the county for dinner included not only the leaders and technicians of the visiting group, but also Professor Yang, Principal Yang, Li Long, and local officials.
Li Long originally didn't want to participate, but he couldn't quite understand what the deputy director was saying and wanted to discuss it with Professor Yang, so he drove Professor Yang and Principal Yang along.
During the meal, Li Long told Professor Yang about the situation. Professor Yang hesitated for a moment and said, "A leader wouldn't be so explicit in their words. Based on my guess, there is definitely a project, but you need to apply for it yourself."
After this exchange is over, I'll go back to Wucheng, ask around, and then give you a call.
Li Long was relieved to hear that.
Support projects delegated by the central and autonomous regions are usually documented. However, these documents often fail to reach the grassroots level, sometimes being intercepted en route.
In his previous life, Li Long had seen a farmer's guide to farming issued by the autonomous region about 20 years ago.
It lists all the subsidies and regular support programs that farmers can receive; it's truly a comprehensive handbook.
This kind of handbook is something we've never seen before in our village. It came from another prefecture, and according to them, each household is required to have one.
I don't know where these funds from our township end up. There are indeed people in the township who regularly engage in farming and animal husbandry, but how they obtained the support funds is nobody else's knowledge.
Even when asked, they wouldn't tell.
After receiving the booklet, Li Long realized that the country had everything clearly explained. However, after working his way up to the middle and lower levels, he didn't know where his "intestinal tract" was blocked by clogged latrines.
In fact, this kind of thing happens in all social strata.
In some military units, training slots might be divided up by the headquarters at the division or regiment level; subsidies allocated by higher authorities to counties might already be targeted by prefectures or autonomous prefectures, and similar situations exist for the slots for impoverished students in schools.
Of course, as things develop further and become more transparent, such incidents will become less frequent.
But at this point, Li Long knew that if he didn't take the initiative, this support project would never come his way.
The world is a giant makeshift operation, especially at times like these. Many grassroots officials are indeed quite honest, but many others are genuinely quite selfish.
After the land and homestead rights were confirmed, the rights certificates that should have been issued to farmers were often left in the offices of village officials for several years. Some of them rotted, some were lost, and no one cared.
Some minimum living allowances have been distributed to people who shouldn't receive them, while others who should be receiving them are still struggling. Responsible cadres and village leaders actively coordinate efforts, and there are many cases like Huang Wenxiu's. Overall, things are getting better.
So after the meal, after seeing off the leaders and technicians of the inspection team, Li Long escorted Professor Yang and Principal Yang back home, and then went home to start drafting the application report.
Li Long had never submitted such an application report before. In his previous life, although he knew there were many support programs and subsidies, in the end, none of them came to him.
Therefore, the procedure is unknown.
Fortunately, he had his own understanding. Since it was an application, he listed out his needs and his strengths in those areas and prepared accordingly.
We need to start working on the report. We'll find a template, or if that doesn't work, we'll write it down according to our own ideas first, and then ask Professor Yang to help us revise it.
Li Longxian listed his advantages: First, he owns a drip irrigation tape factory, giving him a cost advantage; second, he has two years of experience in experimental fields, giving him a technological advantage; third, he currently has a cooperative with 1500 mu of land under its jurisdiction (he exaggerated a bit), giving him a scale advantage; fourth, his family owns high-horsepower tractors and various agricultural machinery, which he considers a modern advantage, and so on.
Then came my own plan: 1500 acres of land, which would require approximately three pump houses, three filter ponds, and three sets of main pipelines.
Having participated in the planting of two drip irrigation experimental fields, I am very familiar with the construction of pump houses, filter beds, and main pipelines, which allows me to save costs and optimize the process.
Next is the overall environment. Currently, the cotton planting area in the entire village has expanded to nearly 3000 mu, and the planting area in the whole township is still expanding.
Given the current cotton prices, this scale of planting is sufficient to boost farmers' income and help them achieve prosperity.
Moreover, the cotton planting technology in this village is relatively mature. Judging from the situation in the past few years, cotton planting has played a very good role in the transformation of saline-alkali land and the expansion of agricultural planting area.
and many more.
After writing all that down, Li Long took another piece of paper and began to list the costs required for the renovation of 1500 acres of land.
He listed two versions of the budget. One version was the cost of drilling a well for each pumping station and irrigating the wells. The other version was for irrigation canals, which was enclosed in parentheses and included the construction cost of the irrigation canals.
In the previous life, the village's overall renovation project involved upgrading all the irrigation canals.
Li Long was unsure whether the autonomous region's support projects would include this funding.
After writing all of this down, Li Long began to integrate it, first creating a draft.
In the afternoon, Li Long picked up Mingming and Haohao and brought them back. After Gu Xiaoxia returned and they had dinner, he showed her the draft he had made.
Although Gu Xiaoxia was no longer with the Education Bureau, she was still very good at organizing documents. After reviewing them, she began to tell Li Long how to make the changes.
The official writing style is different from the theoretical imagination. Although the content is roughly the same, after Gu Xiaoxia's guidance and adjustments, it reads differently.
Gu Xiaoxia talked to Li Long as he revised the application. After they finished, they read it again. Li Long smiled and said, "Hey, this reads much more smoothly and feels much more organized. If I were the boss, I would definitely approve this application. My wife is amazing!"
Gu Xiaoxia smiled upon hearing this, her face slightly flushed, a mixture of pride and shyness.
Two days later, Professor Yang said goodbye to Li Long and returned to Wucheng with his students. Having already gone through the process once, Professor Yang was quite familiar with it, and with Li Long involved, he felt relatively at ease. Before leaving, he specifically mentioned to Li Long that he would keep an eye on the project support application and would call him as soon as there was any news.
Li Long himself was also thinking that he might be able to check the relevant documents at the county level later. As mentioned above, some of the more scarce support projects might be absorbed internally.
However, if you can get the information in advance and prepare accordingly, it's not impossible to get accepted; it really depends on luck.
Overall, Li Long was quite lucky. On May 9th, Professor Yang called Li Long and talked about the project.
"This project has already started. Our autonomous region issued a document at the beginning of the year, requiring applications to be made for a minimum of 100 mu of land, with 1-2 projects allowed per prefecture. Currently, there are fewer than 10 applicants, so there are still quite a few available."
If you want to apply, you should submit a report as soon as possible and work your way up the chain of command. Since our experimental project meeting just concluded, the leadership still remembers it, so you have an advantage.
I'll keep an eye on it for you. As long as things don't get stuck at the county and prefecture levels, I can lend a hand once it reaches the autonomous region level.
Upon hearing this, Li Long understood that simply knowing about the project wasn't enough; they also needed to go through official channels first.
Professor Yang also told him that the deputy director definitely knew about the project application, but it had to go through procedures, and he couldn't give him a direct answer.
The autonomous region had already delegated the document to the county level, and it was hard to say whether the county had notified the lower levels. As a deputy director of the autonomous region, he couldn't directly interfere with some decisions made by the county, so he spoke rather vaguely to Li Long.
Li Long then understood. After thanking Professor Yang, he quickly explained the general content of his application report to Professor Yang, who thought it was good and that would suffice.
After hanging up the phone, Li Long rewrote the report twice, signed it, drove to the county, and handed it to the staff of the Agricultural Bureau as instructed by Professor Yang.
The staff at the Agriculture Bureau were quite surprised, as the notice hadn't been sent down after it reached the county level. The young woman was also curious about how Li Long knew about it.
She just asked a question, and Li Long told her about how the deputy director of the experimental field project led a team to attend the on-site meeting and met with her.
Although he didn't explain it in great detail, Li Long believed that the little girl should understand what he meant.
Sure enough, the staff member took it very seriously after hearing this. After clarifying Li Long's specific situation, he promised to submit the report to the bureau leaders for approval as soon as possible.
In fact, it's unclear whether such projects can be implemented by the county's agricultural bureau. After all, Beiting Prefecture has eight counties and two cities, and it's said that only one or two projects will actually be implemented. It's really hard to say where they will end up.
However, since someone applied and explicitly stated that they had connections, the agricultural bureau officials wouldn't stop them. Seeing that there were no problems with the report, they signed off on it and submitted it to the state.
Although Li Long didn't do much of this kind of "raising the banner" thing, he knew that if he didn't, the report might not even be able to be submitted.
Fortunately, he wasn't completely lying; it was nine parts truth and one part falsehood. If you really investigated from top to bottom, there wouldn't be any wrongdoing.
What followed was a long wait. Fortunately, Professor Yang would keep an eye on this from time to time. Professor Yang's connections in this area were far superior to Li Long's. He would call Li Long to tell him that the report had arrived at the state government and that Beiting State had applied for four or five projects.
When Professor Yang called again, he had already told Li Long that their project had been submitted to the autonomous region.
Li Long was somewhat relieved, since this season was basically a competition based on ability.
He went back to Team 4 and told Xie Yundong and the others about his application for a support project from the autonomous region.
Xie Yundong and his group were quite happy, after all, it would be a good thing if it succeeded, and there would be no loss if it didn't.
Li Long reminded Xie Yundong and the others, and another major purpose was to prepare them mentally.
If the autonomous region really approves this support project, they will definitely come down to investigate and then finalize the project.
So after reminding Xie Yundong and the others, Li Long went to Captain Xu Chengjun and applied for a piece of land for himself to build a factory.
Drip irrigation tape manufacturer.
Xu Chengjun was quite excited when he heard Li Long say that he wanted to set up a factory.
After all, there weren't many decent township enterprises in the whole township at that time. If one could be established in the village, it would be a source of pride when attending meetings in the township.
Of course, Li Long also gave a heads-up, saying that if the factory were to be built, the products it would produce would likely only be for the use of his own cooperative, making it a self-production and self-sales arrangement.
It may take several years before profits are actually generated.
Xu Chengjun waved his hand: "It's alright. As long as the factory is there, even if we produce things but don't sell them, it's still a factory. By the way, how much do you plan to invest in this factory?"
Li Long thought for a moment and said, "Not counting the factory building, the equipment alone would cost two or three hundred thousand."
Xu Chengjun clapped his hands: "Hey, what a huge investment! This is unique in our township. As far as I know, the largest investment in our township's enterprises is that oil pressing workshop, which costs less than 2 yuan! Now our team is taking the lead again!"
Li Long only needs to allocate land for one factory building, which adds up to less than 10 mu (approximately 1.65 acres).
Because the land Li Long wanted was a saline-alkali wasteland, and the investment was substantial, Xu Chengjun readily granted him 20 mu of land.
Li Long didn't stand on ceremony. After obtaining the approval slip, he went back to the county to find Meng Hai. Meng Hai was leading a team to repair the road at the time, and Li Long asked him to spare a few men to help him build the factory building.
Anyway, road construction doesn't require that many people and machines, so let's just consider it as starting multi-faceted projects ahead of time.
Meng Hai was naturally happy to oblige. He selected eight people and brought bulldozers, excavators, and trucks to get to work.
This is the yard right next to the cooperative. After leveling the land, they started building the yard wall and factory buildings.
Li Long's plan is that if the project is approved, the drip irrigation tape factory mentioned in his report must at least exist.
The luck he had been saving up for so long finally came in handy again. On May 19th, Professor Yang called and excitedly told Li Long, "Your project application has been approved! The autonomous region has allocated 300,000 yuan, which must be used for this purpose only. A working group will be coming down soon to verify the project and then contact you."
Hey, that's it! (End of Chapter)