Holy Roman Empire

Chapter 489: Promoting Pork

The agricultural sector accounts for a significant portion of the economy, with the entire industry chain employing over ten million people. If it cannot withstand the impact, the Austrian economy will suffer a severe blow.

Although there are colonial areas to absorb some of the pressure, the core is still the homeland. It is far from the time to shift away from the primary sector. Austria’s agricultural benefits will not end until the invention of chemical fertilizers.

Due to practical needs, Franz can only push forward the development of the livestock industry in advance, artificially increasing grain consumption.

The reason it is considered “in advance” is mainly because the income levels of the populace have not yet risen significantly, and the market demand for meat products is still relatively low.

According to the original plan, Franz intended to promote the livestock industry after 1875, based on the economic development trends of various European countries.

Economists tend to use 1870 as a benchmark year, primarily due to the outbreak of the Second Industrial Revolution. During this period, the economies of Europe and America were growing rapidly, and people’s incomes were also increasing significantly.

As income levels rose, so did consumption levels. According to economic experts’ analysis, five years later would be the golden period for promoting animal husbandry.

Given the limitations of the era, there was no need to worry about competition from Argentine, Canadian, or Australian beef and mutton, at least not in the fresh meat market.

Due to inadequate freezing technology, sending fresh meat to Europe meant having to transport live animals.

Transporting live cattle and sheep from thousands of miles away to the European continent was not an easy task. Any mishap at sea could lead to significant losses.

With these transportation costs added, even if the meat makes it to the European continent, the price will not be cheap. At most, they can sell beef jerky or salted meat.

In the short term, without these strong competitors, another agricultural product boom period will occur. However, this boom must coincide with a time of high market demand to be effective.

Starting to develop the livestock industry ahead of schedule poses certain challenges in creating an initial market.

In fact, developing animal husbandry was not Franz’s own idea. The Ministry of Agriculture had long made plans, but they did not anticipate that the Russians would return to the agricultural export market so quickly.

After the Russian government announced they would default on debts, European countries took retaliatory measures. The more aggressive ones directly seized Russian export products to offset the debts, while the more moderate ones imposed a debt tax.

Well, this debt tax was Franz’s creation, which involved extracting a certain percentage of tax from imported Russian goods to repay the debts owed.

Due to the Austro-Russian alliance, Austria only symbolically collected a small amount of this debt tax, but other European countries weren’t as courteous.

The specific percentage varied, generally not less than 30%. As a result, in the past 2-3 years, the Russian Empire’s export trade shrank by 80%.

Now, the Russian government’s proposal to offset debts with grain is essentially an attempt to break these restrictions. Otherwise, no matter how cheap their grain is, it would struggle to be competitive in the market.

Identifying the problem is easy, but solving it is difficult. After noticing the Russians’ actions, the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture became busy.

The nearly seventy-year-old Minister of Agriculture, Christian, had to retract his vacation request. Without resolving this issue, he could not enjoy a peaceful holiday.

This time is not far off. Perhaps from the second half of the year, Russian agricultural products will reappear in the international market.

In another 2-3 years, Austria’s painstakingly maintained dominance in agricultural exports will cease to exist.

The international market is only so big. As soon as the Russians manage to transport grain from Ukraine and Moscow, they will capture a large market share.

In this era, the main grain-importing countries were few: Britain, Italy, and the German Federal Empire. The remaining countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Switzerland, do import grain, but their demand is not very high.

Overall, the European grain market comprises about 30 million people.

Of course, this refers only to staple grains. The demand for other agricultural by-products varies significantly and is difficult to quantify accurately.

This market is increasing by about 2 million people annually due to population growth in various countries. With no improvement in agricultural technology and grain production not keeping pace with population growth, a gap has emerged.

Currently, 24.6% of Austria’s agricultural production is for export. This segment will be the most impacted.

Reviewing the data, Christian sighed. Being the Minister of Agriculture is challenging. Achieving results is hard, but encountering problems is all too easy.

The largest issue is that the high export percentage makes the market highly susceptible to international shocks. Shifting to domestic sales is not feasible either, as the local market cannot absorb the surplus.

Snow continued to fall, and Vienna’s winter seemed to embrace the snowy landscape. Bracing against the cold wind, Christian shivered as he stepped out of the carriage.

Without pausing, Christian quickly entered the palace and transferred to another carriage.

Schönbrunn Palace covers a considerable area. After Franz’s ascension, the abandoned construction projects were resumed, further expanding the palace’s grounds.

Of course, the main reason was that an area was enclosed for a hunting ground. This was strongly requested by Archduke Karl, as Archduchess Sophie was worried about his health and didn’t allow him to hunt outside. To make hunting more convenient for his elderly father, Franz naturally agreed.

Vienna is, after all, Habsburg territory, and most of the land belongs to the royal family. There were no land costs, and adding a wall didn’t cost much.

Franz didn’t like residing in the old palace much, so he took the opportunity to add several new buildings for his daily residence.

This made the palace gates even further from the emperor. For safety reasons, no outside carriages were allowed inside the palace. People either had to switch to palace carriages or walk. For Christian, the choice was easy—he didn’t want to freeze.

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The telephone is a wonderful invention. As soon as Christian entered the palace, someone notified Franz.

Out of consideration for his old and loyal minister, Franz had already arranged for coffee to be prepared according to Christian’s preferences.

Of course, if people knew that various beverages were always available in the palace and being changed every 15 minutes, the gesture might not seem as thoughtful.

Even if someone knew, they would likely pretend otherwise. Having something to drink is quite good so why even complain? If everyone always told the truth, life would be unbearable.

Franz couldn’t possibly remember the personal preferences of all his ministers. It’s always the subordinates who pay attention to the preferences of their superiors. Which emperor would bother remembering his ministers’ personal tastes?

Taste preferences were meticulously recorded by some people. If there was a mistake, they could just replace the drink. The relationships between monarchs and ministers in Europe weren’t that complicated. Daily trivialities weren’t worth worrying about, and no one risked losing their head over them.

After drinking a sip of coffee to dispel the cold, Christian rested for more than ten minutes before reporting to Franz.

“Your Majesty, here is the data compiled by the Ministry of Agriculture. Currently, the domestic supply and demand for meat products are roughly balanced. To expand domestic demand, the best approach is to lower prices.

It’s not that people don’t like eating meat. It’s just that meat prices are relatively high compared to their incomes.

The international market is even worse. Although the supply and demand for fresh meat are still balanced, there is an oversupply of beef jerky and cured meat products, mostly from the Confederate States of America.

Preliminary estimates suggest that the market can handle an annual increase of 600,000 tons of beef, 400,000 tons of mutton, and 350,000 tons of other meat products. Exceeding this supply could severely impact the market, likely causing prices to plummet.”

Franz was obviously not willing to destabilize the market. As the largest agricultural export country, Austria would suffer the most if the market were disrupted.

After some thought, Franz asked, “What if we extend this timeline to one or two years?”

Animal husbandry takes time, especially in this era without widespread use of feed. It’s mostly hay and grain, and the shortest time to market is over a year.

Minister of Agriculture Christian pondered for a moment before replying, “Your Majesty, although Europe’s population is steadily increasing and the livestock industry is expanding its capacity, even in two years, the maximum increase would be about ten percent.”

After pacing the room a few steps, Franz made a decision, “The Ministry of Agriculture should prepare to promote a livestock breeding plan, aiming for a two-million-ton increase in meat products.

Let’s start by lowering meat prices to stimulate the market. If the market can’t absorb it, we’ll increase our strategic reserves. It will only be for 2-3 years and won’t require much funding.”

The direct grain consumption of cattle and sheep is not significant, but planting fodder will inevitably take up land that would otherwise be used for growing food, thereby reducing grain production.

Unlike in later times, pork wasn’t very popular in this era due to dietary habits that would take a long time to change.

In fact, the per capita consumption of meat products in Europe at this time wasn’t particularly low, possibly because wealthy individuals skewed the average. For example, in Austria, the per capita consumption of meat products was 82 pounds (about 37 kilograms).

Franz paused before adding, “We can increase pork production. Compared to beef and mutton, pork is relatively cheaper and more acceptable to the public. If pork production increases, I plan to add 300 grams of pork per week to the meals of children receiving compulsory education.”

Regardless of preferences, those who had the luxury of being picky went to private schools. Austria’s compulsory education schools lacked the facilities of private schools and were attended by children from lower-class families.

Having meat at all was already good. Currently, schools only provide meat once a week. Beef and mutton were out of the question unless it was a holiday or Franz’s birthday.

On regular days, the only meat provided by schools was fish, for the simple reason that it was cheap. The same amount of money could buy more meat, so the frugal Ministry of Education could only afford this inexpensive option.

Promoting pork was a necessity due to the high prices of beef and mutton, which couldn’t be reduced easily. Pork was cheaper, so it became the focus of promotion.

Previously, the government had promoted fish, but only sea fish were popular in the market. This was a side effect of industrialization, which inevitably brought environmental pollution, causing fish and shrimp in many rivers to mutate.

Mutated fish and shrimp were problematic, and after instances of food poisoning, people no longer dared to eat them. The Austrian government even legislated against the sale and consumption of mutated fish and shrimp.

This affected the entire freshwater fish population, making them unpopular. Except in the inland mountainous regions, almost no one consumed freshwater fish.