Chapter 107: Cute and Terrifying Creatures (1)
TL: Hanguk
A farm six kilometers from the Brentwood cherry farm. The Brentwood fields in late January still held the chill of winter.
Frederick Harris stood in the middle of the farm in work boots that came up to his knees. His gaze swept across the endless 200 acres of his new farm.
"Pretty different from cherries and walnuts, isn't it?"
His son Brandon scooped up a handful of soil, let it crumble from his palm, and muttered.
"It does feel different right from the ground up. The grains are a lot coarser, kind of dry? But are almonds really going to keep doing well like Brian says? From what I looked into, the market price has been climbing, slow but steady. When word got out that we'd sold the walnut farm and taken over an almond farm, some of the guys were worried, and some were actually jealous."
However little Brandon cared about farming, his friends were by and large middle-class white kids or better, and out in the country, white folks of the middle class and up tended to be farmers themselves.
On top of that, with his dad being a farm owner, it was only natural that his friends gravitated toward that world too.
"It won't be a bad bet. Brian's got an eye for the market that's no worse than mine. You remember when we were taking over the farm and the previous owner suddenly jacked up the price?"
"Ugh... that was so petty. He bumped it up by two hundred grand out of nowhere... I still can't believe we ended up paying a hundred thousand more."
"Yeah, that one stung me too."
But the fact that the previous owner had kept raising the price right up to the end, reluctant to sell at all, was as good as proof that the almond market was getting better and better. And sure enough, out in the real market, demand for almonds was climbing higher all the time.
What he liked most of all was the export demand. The appetite for American almonds in Asia and the Middle East was so substantial that he was convinced he couldn't possibly lose money, so long as he could just get the almonds shipped out.
Just then, the sound of a car carried from far off, and a BMW Z4, badly out of place on a farm, rolled up and came to a stop. Frederick, who knew exactly who owned the car, broke into a grin, and Brandon's mouth twisted even further.
Inside the Z4 that had pulled up to the farm, meanwhile, Chloe pursed her lips.
"I took out a loan of over a million dollars... and oppa gets to do it together with Dad and spend less money... I don't like it."
"Such a jealous one."
After teasing her like that, I climbed out of the car with Chloe and walked over to the Harris men, now almond farm owners, father and son.
"So you two came together. Nice car you've got there."
"Haha, thank you. We rode over from school together. Were you keeping things up the way I showed you before?"
Right after the farm was first acquired, I'd told Frederick what needed to be done. Of course, since I had a contract giving me thirty percent of the company he'd set up and of the profits it would generate down the line, I'd explained it all in great detail. The better the almond farm did, the better it was for Redwood, after all.
Frederick nodded.
"Sure did. Cleared out the harvest residue nice and clean, and got rid of every last one of the mummy nuts, the diseased fruit. Just doing that took quite a crew of hands."
People said American farming was all done by machines, but even so, there were plenty of places where a human touch was still needed.
"Well done. Just doing that alone can cut next year's pest damage roughly in half. How did you handle the fertilizer?"
"Just like you told me, focused on nitrogen (N) and potassium (K). Nitrogen at around thirty to forty pounds per acre? Potassium at about forty to sixty pounds per acre. Gave it plenty of water too."
"You shouldn't give it too much, though."
"I didn't go that far with it."
I felt the soil beside the trunk of an almond tree with my hand. Sure enough, just as Frederick had said, it wasn't waterlogged.
When I let a satisfied look cross my face, Frederick went on with his explanation.
"And to prep for pests and disease, I set up pheromone traps and started collecting the data."
"Well done. You need to track where the pests are moving to, after all."
At my words, Brandon cut in.
"You have to know where the pests are moving too?"
The question carried a note of, do we really need to go that far? It was a perfectly reasonable thing to wonder, so I broke it down for him.
"Pests... especially the Navel Orangeworm, the Leafroller moth, the Scale insect, those kinds of pests, when October comes around the fruit's gone and the temperature drops, so it's the time they move to new habitats looking for places to lay eggs or overwinter. So when we check their movement, we're checking where the pests are migrating from and to right now. And why do we need to know that... because if you figure out where they overwinter, you can reduce the damage next year."
"Oh..."
Brandon's face showed that he'd gotten it.
"The Navel Orangeworm, the signature almond pest, migrates as an adult and lays its eggs inside leftover fruit or mummy nuts, where it gets ready to overwinter. So if you set up traps and build up the data, you can tell how many pests are still left on the farm and where they're heading."
At my explanation, Frederick clapped Brandon on the shoulder.
"You followed all that?"
"Yeah, I get it."
As his son nodded, I watched Frederick look pleased and asked him a question.
"So how far along is the pest and disease map right now?"
"Haven't quite gotten that far yet."
Frederick looked a little embarrassed. Come to think of it, there'd been so much to do that it occurred to me he might simply not have found the time to make the pest and disease map.
"Then check with the crew, go back over the trap data, and get the pest and disease map finished. That'll make preparing for pests and disease much easier."
"I'll do that. I checked all the valves and lines too, and went over the whole thing for any leaks."
"Nice work. I'll say it again, but if walnuts and cherries were farming done by gut instinct, you have to think of almonds as farming done by the numbers. From here on out, you'll need to trust the figures and the data even more than you do now."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Frederick listened to me, focused like a student. He'd farmed for decades, but learning a new crop seemed to thrill him, and his eyes burned with a passion that made him look like he'd forgotten his age.
"And there's another reason I came today. There's one more thing you need to get ready for. I mentioned beekeeping to you before, right?"
"Beekeeping? Ah, that's right."
Just then, far in the distance, a truck towing a trailer behind it came rolling toward us.
"Is that, by any chance...?"
"Yes, I called them. That's the beekeeping company's truck."
"Ah, I see."
I walked slowly toward the vehicle, waving my hand. Before long, the truck, its side stamped with the words H. COOPER APIARIES, came to a stop in front of me, and a middle-aged man who looked to be in his fifties stepped out.
"Harold Cooper. I came at the time we agreed on. Not late, am I?"
"Of course not. This way..."
I turned and spoke to Frederick.
"This gentleman here is the beekeeper."
Frederick, who had already known, back when he took on the almond farm, that he'd need to learn about beekeeping, broke into a bright smile.
"Frederick Harris. And this is my son and business partner, Brandon."
"Pleased to meet you."
"I figured I'd have to learn about beekeeping someday, so I've been studying it here and there, and looks like today's the day I get to learn for real. So what's loaded up in there, beehives...?"
"That's right."
"Ohh, is that so. How many are we renting?"
For a moment, Harold Cooper, not understanding Frederick's question, glanced over at me.
"Looks like you haven't heard about the contract?"
"Ah, I hadn't told him yet."
I turned to Frederick.
"It's not just a rental, it's a deal with an option to buy attached. For now you lease them, a professional management company takes care of the bees, and in two years you can decide whether to buy them or keep leasing."
"So you're saying I can buy them after leasing?"
"Yes. But if you decide to buy now, the price is set based on the present moment, and if you buy in two years, it's set based on the moment two years from now."
"Ah..."
Realizing that, in the end, every decision was going to fall to him, Frederick felt his head start to spin.
"First things first, I'll start moving the hives in. You'll all need to put these on and help carry them..."
And so, just like that, we found ourselves pulling mesh veils over our heads to keep from getting stung and hauling beehives.
By the time we'd carried all the hives, scared of being stung even in this weather, our bodies were so flushed we were practically sweating.
"Sign right here, please. I'll be managing the operation from here starting tomorrow. If there's anything you don't understand, just let me know."
"Understood."
Once Harold Cooper had climbed back into his truck and disappeared, I turned to Frederick, who still looked puzzled, and said.
"You're wondering why I didn't just lease them, why I went with a lease-then-buy arrangement, right?"
"That's right."
It was a natural thing to wonder, since almond farms usually leased their hives rather than buying them outright.
"The reason I recommended you go into almond farming is that I expect almond prices to rise sharply over the long term. But there's just one thing to watch out for, and that's the bees. As you know, almonds absolutely need bees in order to pollinate. The problem is that starting last year, the bees began to slowly decline."
"That... I saw it on the news too. But isn't it a short-term thing?"
Even when everyone was worried, the usual instinct was to cling to the hope that maybe it would pass.
"I think it could be a long-term disaster."
"You think it's that serious?"
There was a look in Frederick's eyes that said he now understood why I'd gone out of my way to decide on buying the bees rather than leasing them.
In reality, the bee decline that set in sharply from 2006 grew serious enough by 2007 that Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) was being formally reported.
The reasons cited for such a grave outcome included the stress from migratory beekeeping, which hauled hives thousands of kilometers over the winter, new pathogens (Nosema, viruses, and the like), the rising use of insecticides (neonicotinoids in particular), and the temporary overcrowded competition for pollination caused by flowering periods all bunching together.
In any case, this phenomenon sent hive rental fees soaring, and there were records of some farms whose fruit set rates plummeted because they couldn't secure any bees at all.
"You'll be able to keep leasing bees to grow almonds going forward, but the lease prices are going to keep bouncing all over the place. Given that, I judged it was better to operate with a buy option built in now."
"But if you take the market price as it stands two years from now, doesn't the buy option make hardly any difference?"
"In exchange, the terms give us priority on the hives."
"Ah..."
He still wouldn't grasp, this early on, what value there was in securing priority over the hives, but even so, Frederick was certain I hadn't drawn up a contract like this without good reason.
Then, after mulling it over for a moment, he asked.
"If it were you, what would you do?"
I understood what he meant, and gave a shrug as I answered.
"If it were me, I wouldn't go for a buy-option contract. I'd lock in a firm purchase. At today's price."
Hive prices had been surging since 2006. Right now it was still the early stage of that surge, so prices weren't all that expensive yet, but come next year, hive prices would climb far higher than they were now.
As if he'd expected as much, Frederick gave a wry smile.
"So you brought me an unfinished contract on purpose, to leave every last choice up to me?"
"I can't decide everything for you. If you'd like, we can revise the contract right now."
"And the quantity, what are we looking at?"
"A hundred today, two hundred in the second batch, but honestly, that's not enough. We need at least a hundred more on top of that, and if we assume we should prepare for anything unexpected, then another hundred, so we need two hundred more."
Here Brandon cut in.
"If it's a lease, the company handles the management anyway, but if we buy them, does that mean I'm the one who ends up doing the beekeeping?"
I was the one who answered.
"That's right. That's why it's not a beekeeping operation for honey, it's a pollination apiary."
It hadn't existed in 2007, but before my regression, farms like this were called Pollination Apiaries. It was a concept that didn't exist yet in this era.
"Uh, uh...? Then I'm the one who...?"
Brandon's eyes filled with dread on the spot. They pleaded, please don't make me do it, but Frederick was merciless.
"Then should I do it?"
"No..."
"You're the young one, you should do it."
"...... Fine."
Brandon sulked, but for my part, I gazed contentedly at the hives we'd secured. Those things would carry the seeds that would make this farm prosperous, so just looking at them set my mind at ease.
*****
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