Chapter 613 Work Report

The first East African Food Festival was quite informal, and the dishes were very ordinary with almost no innovation, but the East African government's purpose was more to promote food safety awareness through this food festival.

This can be seen from the ingredients provided by the East African government, most of which are very common ingredients in East Africa.

At the same time, there are so-called "nutrition" experts who come to educate the people of East Africa. Just like the Western capitalists "hype" desserts, in the mouths of East African "experts", it becomes that sugar intake must be moderate, and excessive sugar intake may lead to... a long list of diseases.

This is contrary to the blind pursuit of sugar by the media and interest groups around the world in the 19th century. In fact, the current production of sugar crops in East Africa is not exaggerated compared with countries at the same latitude. However, it is foreseeable that East Africa's sugar production will reach a rather exaggerated level in the future.

Ernst just doesn't want East Africa to become a country like the United States, with excess sugar in the human body, and he wants to set the tone for them in advance.

In any case, the expansion of planting will continue because the global demand for sugar is very strong, large-scale planting is profitable, and industrial production will also consume a large part of it, such as the military industry.

If Ernst had been unable to continue writing, he would have come up with a dietary guide for East Africans to guide their eating habits.

However, this was the first East African Food Festival after all, and the content and procedures were very simple, but it still attracted widespread attention.

It is impossible for the people of East Africa not to pay attention. After all, the important way for them to get news about East Africa is newspapers, government announcements, or hearsay.

In fact, Ernst didn't care much about the food festival, but Constantine and Prince Karl were very interested in it.

Ernst is now listening to a government report on the achievements and effects of water conservancy construction in East Africa over the past decade.

"From 1865 to last year, in 15 years, we have repaired more than 23,000 kilometers of rivers in East Africa, of which more than 80% are local projects, about 20% are high-standard projects, and more than 60% were completed within five years, greatly improving domestic river navigation, irrigation and flood control conditions."

"More than 5,780 kilometers of riverbanks were built and reinforced, 300 million cubic meters of earthwork was done, 763 kilometers of canals were dug, 180,000 small water conservancy projects were built, and 27 large water conservancy projects with a total benefit of more than 10,000 mu were built."

"The country's arable land area with effective and sufficient irrigation has increased to 35 million hectares, mainly concentrated in the Great Lakes region, the coastal plain production area, the inland plateau production area, and parts of Matabele Province."

Effective and sufficient are the key points. If these two qualifiers are removed, the scale of developed arable land in East Africa will double. However, much of the remaining arable land may still rely on the weather due to imperfect water conservancy facilities.

Large-scale development in East Africa still has a long way to go for the African continent, which has been absent for thousands of years. The United States, also a major agricultural country, took hundreds of years to achieve its current agricultural achievements. It is impossible for East Africa to complete the journey that took other countries hundreds or even thousands of years to complete in just a dozen years.

"Last year, the per-acre grain yield in irrigation areas across the country increased by about 31 kilograms compared with ten years ago, or about 247 kilograms. The construction of water conservancy facilities played an important role in this."

The increase in grain production is definitely related to the construction of water conservancy projects in East Africa, but it is not the only factor. Other factors include the promotion of scientific planting techniques, the improvement of agricultural tool performance, and the result of East Africa overcoming various setbacks and correcting the wrongs.

After all, East Africa is a completely unfamiliar land for East Africans. The climate, soil and precipitation of this land are completely different from those of the Eurasian continent.

The simplest example is that the timing, size, frequency, etc. of the rainy season in various parts of East Africa all need to be explored by the East African government, agricultural experts, meteorological experts, farmers and other parties.

In the early days of East Africa, it was common for crops to be reduced or even completely lost due to misjudgment of the timing or scale of the rainy season. It took East Africans more than ten years to clearly understand the patterns and changes involved.

Water conservancy construction is a stabilizer and catalyst for agricultural development in East Africa. It reduces the impact of the natural environment on agriculture and makes an important contribution to increasing grain production and income in East Africa.

"In addition to food crops, cash crop planting areas have also benefited greatly. Last year, 1.3 million hectares of cash crop areas were added, and the national cash crop planting area reached more than 23 million hectares. With the advancement of water conservancy facilities construction, more places can be turned into fertile fields in the future, especially in the northern and inland plateau production areas."

"And with the improvement of water conservancy facilities, some land that could only be used for one or two crops in previous years can now be used for one more crop. Therefore, the increase in grain planting area in East Africa in recent years has not been large, and it can keep up with the population growth rate."

"As of 1880, we still have more room to adjust and build East Africa's water conservancy infrastructure. In particular, in the past three years, East Africa's water conservancy construction has been effectively developed, more than in the previous decade combined. As time goes by, it is optimistically estimated that within ten years we will be able to complete the task of basic farmland and water conservancy construction projects in East Africa."

Well, Ernst is quite satisfied with the speed. It is not easy for a young country like East Africa to achieve this effect.

As for the ten years mentioned by my subordinates, that is just to lay a rough foundation. With the passage of time and advancement of technology, all the goals that East Africa is pursuing now will definitely undergo tremendous changes.

Ernst: "The national water conservancy construction project has just been put on the right track, but with the accumulation of more than a decade, the conditions in East Africa are much better than before. This is why we can further transform the natural environment in East Africa."

After all, a world-class project like the East African Water Conservancy Project requires extremely huge manpower, material and financial resources, and requires sufficient preparation time.

In terms of manpower, one is that East Africa has achieved "registration of all black people" and made up for the major gap in slave labor. The other is the vigorous growth of the immigrant population in East Africa. If the immigrant population in East Africa is still at the million level, even if East Africa mobilizes the whole country, it will be extremely difficult to do just this one thing.

Only after the East African immigrant population exceeds 10 million can East Africa truly concentrate its efforts on major tasks, such as achieving parallel development in multiple fields while ensuring agricultural planting.

Agricultural development provides a guarantee for East Africa to carry out large-scale national projects. Otherwise, East Africa would not be able to solve the problem of labor food alone. At the same time, agricultural development has solved a large part of East Africa's funding gap.

At the same time, various projects in East Africa have fed back to the development and value of East African agriculture, all of which have been completed in the past decade.

The accumulation of more than a decade has enabled East Africa to achieve a breakthrough from quantitative change to qualitative change. As stated in the report, the construction of water conservancy projects in East Africa in the past three years has exceeded the amount accumulated in the previous decade.

Moreover, it is now growing at a considerable rate every year, rapidly filling the gaps in this field in East Africa and bringing the penetration rate of water conservancy facilities in East Africa up to the standards of normal countries, and even surpassing many South American countries.

(End of this chapter)