At the township Party committee meeting, the deputy township head brought out several letters of intent for land contracts for discussion.
"They're all from the Fourth Team?" the township head asked in puzzlement. "And all large plots? Is there that much wasteland available for reclamation over there?"
"How could there be?" the deputy township head said with a laugh. "It's all saline-alkali land. I don't know what's gotten into the Fourth Team, but they've all set their sights on it now. Have they got money burning a hole in their pockets?"
"I know something about this." Jiang Zhiyu, who was now deputy Party secretary of the township, stopped writing and said:
"The Fourth Team planted quite a bit of cotton this year. Li Long-the Li Long from our township who was honored as a national-level Ethnic Unity Advanced Individual-his family planted a hundred mu of cotton."
"A hundred mu? Nobody elsewhere in our township grows cotton, do they?" the secretary asked.
"No, they're the first. Also, thirty or forty mu of his hundred mu of cotton were saline-alkali land reclaimed last year. A few years ago, he invited a professor from the Agricultural College to test and improve the soil and adjust its salinity and alkalinity..."
"Yes, I know. Professor Luo, with a few university students. I believe you even did a report on it at the time, Comrade Zhiyu," the secretary said with a smile.
"Yes, that was it. Since then, the Fourth Team has been reclaiming large stretches of wasteland. Not just the Li family, but the Wang family too. The Wang family mainly reclaimed land that wasn't saline-alkali and used it to grow wheat. Most of the land the Li family reclaimed was planted with cotton this year, with a smaller portion planted with sugar beets..."
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