I don't know when the crop production in the Soviet Union began to decline year after year.
The collective farm system, which had played a huge role in the Great Patriotic War, gradually declined.
This has prompted more and more farm members to abandon their land and flock to the big cities with their families to make a living.
The end result is that the population of the big cities is increasing, but the food in the stores is getting less and less, and everything seems to be an endless cycle that cannot be solved.
And as the secretary of the Central Committee in charge of agriculture, Gorbachev is trying to reverse the bad things.
Not long ago, Gorbachev visited Canada, one of the world's major grain exporters, to learn about and inspect Canada's advanced agricultural production and management experience.
There is a reason why Canada was chosen over somewhere else, because Canada and the Soviet Union have many similarities in terms of dimension, climate, etc., which is more referential.
But just before Gorbachev's visit, US President Ronald Reagan's remarks accusing the Soviet Union of being an evil country cast a big shadow over the trip.
Originally, Gorbachev went to Canada to negotiate a grain import agreement with the Canadian government, but the attitude of the United States made Canada hesitate, and in the end, it was Yakovlev who won the contract for the Soviet Union to import 2 million tons of wheat per year by virtue of his personal relationship with the Canadian prime minister.
Although Gorbachev's move earned him enormous prestige in the political arena, Gorbachev, who was mainly an agriculturalist, knew that this amount of food was a drop in the bucket for a huge country.
Before he put agricultural production in the Soviet Union on the right track, access to a stable source of food became the biggest problem for Gorbachev.
But now there is good news in his ears, the Moscow Trading Company, which is affiliated with the Moscow Komsomol Municipal Committee, has easily obtained Canadian wheat flour, and how they did it.
This news was told to Gorbachev by Yakovlev, who had originally visited and inspected the Moscow Youth League Committee at the invitation of the Moscow Youth League Committee, and Yakovlev accidentally discovered a commodity trading company called the Moscow Trading Company, which had just been formed by the Youth League Committee.
Curious and interested, Yakovlev asked to visit it, but he had no idea that this humble trading company could import Canadian wheat on a large scale.
Yakovlev, who participated in the whole process of Gorbachev's negotiations in Canada, was shocked at that time, and did not expect that the painstaking efforts of the two people in Canada were not as good as a collective enterprise under the Moscow Youth League Committee So the surprised Yakovlev immediately told Gorbachev the news, Gorbachev didn't believe it at first, but he had to believe it when he saw the name of the country of origin on the grain package.
Later, he sent people to learn from several food companies that cooperated with this enterprise that the wheat and wheat flour sold by this enterprise were 10% lower than the price negotiated by Gorbachev in Canada.
Gorbachev did not yet have the idea of visiting Seryosha in person, and it was enough for him to have his secretary give Seryosha an invitation letter.
And Seryosha really did not expect that he would be able to attract Gorbachev's attention so quickly, and he did not know that it was his wheat business that attracted Gorbachev's interest.
Gorbachev met with Seryosha at the White House in Moscow, where the new Supreme Soviet, built in 1981, also houses Gorbachev's office.
Seryosha was led in by the staff here, and walked around the labyrinthine building for a long time before reaching the destination of the trip.
When Seryosha walked into Gorbachev's office, Gorbachev was sitting in his seat waiting for him.
Before Seryosha could speak, Gorbachev motioned for him to sit in the seat opposite him.
Seryosha carefully pulled out the stool and sat down gently.
To be honest, he felt more nervous here than ever.
"I came to you today to ask you how the Canadian wheat of the Moscow Trading Company came from," Gorbachev asked with a blank face.
Seryosha felt a little panic in his heart, he thought that Gorbachev had discovered something, but he still forced himself to calm down, and said without hesitation: "We procured through normal overseas trade" "But why is your price much lower than the price of government procurement?"
asked Gorbachev, still expressionless.
"What do you mean by government procurement?"
asked Seryosha puzzled.
Gorbachev remembered that the contract with Canada had not been made public to the public, so as not to cause panic among the people by misunderstanding the price of food or other rumors.
He opened the drawer, took out a copy of the contract from it, flipped to the page of the price, and placed it directly in front of Seryosha Seryosha took the document, and he first glanced at Gorbachev's expression, which did not seem to mean to ask the teacher for guilt.
Then I glanced at the price list in my hand, which involved the quotation of some agricultural products, mainly oats and wheat, but the price of the transaction was really high and scary, and the term of this contract was as long as ten years, it was obvious that someone had cheated it.
"Secretary, this price" Seryosha did not know how to continue, because he knew that if he said it, he would offend the person who signed the agreement.
So he thought about it for a moment and continued: "This price is still very fair" "I wonder why your Moscow trading company can purchase agricultural products at such low prices," Gorbachev asked solemnly.
"The way we do it with our partners is barter, that is, we exchange domestic oil and cotton with each other for farm goods of equal value, you know, there is a huge interest rate difference between the purchase price of oil in our country and the price of international oil, and the same is true for cotton, but the price of grain is completely opposite, and this is beneficial for both sides," Seryosha explained to Gorbachev.
"That's right," Gorbachev nodded thoughtfully.
Then he continued to ask, "Which is the company you partner with overseas?"
"Romanov Trading Company, based in Switzerland," Seryosha replied dryly. t1706231537: