Chapter 492: Promotion of Pork

Agriculture accounts for too much of the total economy, and the entire industrial chain employs tens of millions. Once it fails to withstand the impact, the Austrian economy will be hit hard.

Despite the colonial flood, the homeland is still the core. It is far from the time to transfer the primary industry. Before the birth of chemical fertilizers, the dividend period of Austrian agriculture will not end.

Forced by practical needs, Franz can only promote the development of the breeding industry in advance and artificially increase the consumption of food.

The reason why it is said to be ahead of time is mainly because the income level of the people has not increased, and the demand for meat products in the market is small.

According to the original plan, Franz was going to put the breeding industry after 1875, which was determined according to the economic development of European countries.

Those who study the economy are accustomed to put the period from 1870 to 1890 in a cycle, mainly when the second industrial revolution broke out. During this period, the economies of European and American countries were growing rapidly, and the income of the people also increased greatly.

Income growth is also accompanied by an increase in consumption levels. According to the data analyzed by economic experts, five years later will be the golden period for the promotion of animal husbandry.

Limited by the times, there is no need to worry about the impact of beef and mutton in Argentina, Canada, and Australia in this era, at least not in the fresh meat market.

The freezing technology is not good enough. If you want to send fresh meat to Europe, you must send it alive.

It is not an easy task to transport live cattle and sheep from thousands of miles away to the European continent. A casual accident at sea will result in heavy losses.

Amortize these transportation costs, and even if it is shipped to continental Europe, the price is not cheap. At most, they sell beef jerky, or cured meat.

There will be no such strong competitors in the short term, and it is another agricultural dividend period. However, this bonus period must be generated at a time when market demand is strong.

Now that the development of the breeding industry is started in advance, it is still difficult to do the market in the early stage.

In fact, the development of animal husbandry was not created by Franz himself. The Ministry of Agriculture had made plans for a long time, but did not expect the Russians to return to the agricultural export market so soon.

After the tsarist government announced default on its debts, European countries took retaliatory measures, radically confiscating Russian exports to pay off debts, and easing debt taxes.

Well, this debt tax was pioneered by Franz, which is to extract a certain percentage of taxes from Russian imports to pay off the debts owed before.

In the relationship between the Russian-Austrian alliance, this debt tax Austria only collects a little bit, and other European countries don't give face like that.

The specific ratio depends entirely on everyone's mood, and generally it will not be lower than 30%. Affected by this, in the past two or three years, the export trade of the Russian Empire has shrunk by eight layers.

Now the tsarist government proposes to pay off debts with food, in fact, to break these restrictions, otherwise, even if their food prices are cheap, it will be difficult for them to be competitive in the market.

It is easy to find problems, but difficult to solve them. Sensing the Russians' actions, the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture got busy.

Agriculture Minister Christian, who is nearly seventy years old, also had to withdraw the leave report. Unless this problem is solved, he will not want to go on vacation with peace of mind.

This time is not far away, perhaps from the second half of the year, Russian agricultural products will appear in the international market again.

In another two or three years, Austria's painstakingly managed agricultural export hegemony will cease to exist.

The international market is so big, as long as the Russians ship out the grains from Ukraine and Moscow, they can grab a large market share.

In this era, there were only a few major food importing countries, such as Britain, Italy, the German Federal Empire, and the remaining Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Switzerland. Although they are also importing food, the demand is not too large.

In total, there is a market for about 30 million people on the European grain market.

Of course, this only refers to the staple food. The demand for other agricultural and sideline products varies greatly, making it difficult to carry out effective statistics.

This market is still increasing at a rate of 2 million per year, which is brought about by the population growth of various countries. If agricultural technology has not improved, and food production has not increased synchronously with population growth, the gap will appear.

At present, 24.6% of the agricultural products produced in Austria are exported, and this part is the most affected.

After sorting out the information, Christian sighed. The Minister of Agriculture is not easy to do, it is too difficult to get results, and it is too easy to get problems.

Exports account for too much and are vulnerable to the impact of the international market, which is the biggest problem. If you want to transfer to domestic sales, the domestic market will not be able to consume it.

The snow is still falling, and the days in Vienna this winter seem to like silverware. The cold wind blew his face, and Christian, who had just come out of the carriage, shuddered.

Without pausing, Christian hurried into the palace and changed to another carriage.

Schönbrunn Palace occupies a large area. After Franz succeeded to the throne, the unfinished project began to rebuild, and now the area is even larger.

Of course, it was mainly to encircle a hunting ground, which was strongly requested by Archduke Karl because the Queen Mother Sophie was worried about his health and prevented him from going out hunting. In order to make it easier for his elderly father to hunt, Franz naturally agreed.

Anyway, Vienna is the domain of the Habsburg family. Most of the land is owned by the royal family. There is no land cost, and it doesn't cost much to add a wall.

Franz didn't like to live in the original palace, and took the opportunity to add a few more buildings as a daily living area.

This made the palace gate farther away from the emperor. For security reasons, the palace prohibits any foreign carriages from entering. Either transfer or walk. This multiple-choice question is easy to do, and Christian doesn't want to freeze yet.

...

The phone is a good thing, and Franz was notified as soon as Christian entered the palace.

Franz, who is sympathetic to the old minister, has already prepared coffee according to his preferences.

Of course, if someone knew that the various beverages in the palace were always available and changed every 15 minutes, the effect of bribing people's hearts might not be great.

Of course, even if someone knew about it, most of them would pretend to be confused. Some drinks are good, and there is so much nonsense. If they all tell the truth, this day will not be over.

How could Franz remember the personal preferences of ministers? Only subordinates have always paid attention to the preferences of their superiors. Which emperor ran to care about the personal preferences of ministers when he was full?

Taste hobbies are not specially recorded by someone. If you make a mistake, it's a big deal to change a glass. The relationship between monarchs and ministers in Europe is not so complicated, and the small details of daily life are not worth mentioning, so there is no need to worry about accidentally losing your head.

After taking a sip of coffee to dissipate the cold, Christian reported to Franz after a rest for ten minutes.

"Your Majesty, this is the statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture. At present, the supply and demand of domestic meat products are basically balanced. The best way to expand domestic demand is to lower the price.

It's not that people don't like meat, but the current domestic meat price is still a bit high relative to their income.

The international market is even worse. Although the supply and demand in the fresh meat market is still in balance, the supply of beef jerky and cured meat is somewhat large. Most of these products come from the Confederate States of America.

Preliminary judgment shows that an increase of 600,000 tons of beef, 400,000 tons of mutton and 350,000 tons of other meat products is the limit that the market can bear.

If this supply is exceeded, it will have a huge impact on the market, and it will likely cause prices to plummet. "

Franz is obviously unable to do things that destroy the market. As the largest exporter of agricultural products, the market was hit, and Austria suffered the most.

After thinking about it, Franz asked, "What if we put this time in one year, or two years later?"

Animal husbandry also takes time. In this era, feed is not popular. It is all forage and grain. The time for slaughtering is relatively long, and the shortest time is more than one year.

Agriculture Minister Christian thought for a moment and replied: "Your Majesty, although the population of Europe is growing steadily, the breeding industry itself is also expanding its production capacity. If you put it in two years, it will increase by about ten percent at most."

After wandering a few steps indoors, Franz made a decision: "The Ministry of Agriculture is preparing to promote the breeding program, calculated on the basis of an increase of two million tons of meat products.

First, push down the price of meat products and cultivate the market. If the market cannot digest it, we will increase the strategic reserve materials. That is about two or three years, and it doesn't take much money. "

The direct food consumption of cattle and sheep is not large, but planting forage will inevitably crowd out the land originally grown for food, thereby reducing food production.

Unlike later generations, pork is not very popular in this era. It is determined by eating habits, and it will take a long time to change.

In fact, the per capita consumption of meat products in Europe in this era is not too low, perhaps it was pulled up by the rich. In Austria, for example, per capita meat consumption is 82 pounds. (about 37 kg)

After a pause, Franz added: "Pork production can be increased. Compared with beef and mutton, the price of pork is relatively cheap, which is more acceptable to the public.

If pork production goes up, I am going to add 300 grams of pork per week to the table of the children receiving compulsory education. "

Don't say whether you like it or not, those who are qualified to be picky eaters go to private schools. The compulsory education schools in Austria are inferior to private schools in all facilities, and they are all students of the lower-level civilians.

It would be nice to have meat to eat, but now the school only provides meat once a week. Don't think about beef and mutton, unless it is a festival or Franz's birthday, it can only appear.

In normal times, the only meat provided by the school is fish. There is only one reason, and that is cheap. The same money can buy more meat, and the budget-conscious Ministry of Education can only provide this kind of cheap meat.

There is no way to promote pork. The price of beef and mutton is too high. This is not something that can be lowered if you want to. If pork is cheap, it will be promoted.

Before that, the government had already promoted fish, and only sea fish was popular in the market.

This is a sequelae brought by industry. With the development of industry and the inevitable environmental pollution, fish and shrimp mutations have appeared in many rivers.

Mutated fish and shrimp are not good things. After food poisoning occurs, no one dares to eat them. The Vienna government also legislated to prohibit the sale and consumption of mutant fish and shrimp.

This takes down the entire freshwater fish population and makes them unpopular. Freshwater fish is hardly eaten by anyone except in the mountainous interior.