At the end of December, Li Long and the others held a shareholders' meeting at the Cooperative. The first item was to explain the situation to the new shareholders, mainly by announcing the Cooperative's assets, the number of shares represented by each person's land after joining, and the agricultural supply fees they would need to pay before spring.
The second item was that Tao Daqiang had settled the land reclamation arrangements with the Third Team. With his father-in-law Old Yang putting his weight behind it, things had gone smoothly.
Of course, according to Tao Daqiang himself, there was another very important reason: when the Third Team's village director learned that the Cooperative would turn the newly reclaimed land into drip-irrigated fields, he agreed at once.
The lease was for ten years. For the first five years, they would pay a token one yuan per mu per year. From the sixth through the tenth year, the rent would be one hundred yuan per mu per year.
When the ten-year lease expired, the land would revert to the Production Team, with the drip irrigation equipment fully installed and the land improvements complete.
Overall, both sides had their own calculations. It was a win-win arrangement.
However, the Third Team had no large stretches of wasteland. The tract Tao Daqiang found was about the largest available, and even after reclamation, it would amount to only 890 mu.
As Xie Yundong put it, nearly nine hundred mu was still worthwhile. It was less saline and alkaline than the Fourth Team's wasteland, so improving it would be easier.
The land also lay to the south, close to the water source-in fact, right beside the Dry Canal-making it convenient to put in a pump house. It was relatively level, too, so the renovation would be less troublesome.