Chapter 816 Agricultural Development Report 1890
This possibility only existed a few years ago. Now the Japanese navy has developed, and it is basically impossible for the Imperial Navy to "control" the Far East.
Throughout the 1980s, the navies of the United States, Japan, and the Far East Empire all expanded, while the East African Navy lagged behind in this regard. However, with the end of the South African War, Ernst did not plan to focus on military expansion in the future.
Moreover, due to the high military expenditure caused by a whole year of high-intensity war and the impact of the war on East Africa's foreign trade, East Africa suffered huge economic losses.
After the war with Britain, the surrounding environment of East Africa will be safe for the next twenty years, so in the next decade East Africa should focus on developing its economy, especially promoting industrial upgrading.
…
First town city.
The Ministry of Agriculture reported to Ernst on the current development of agriculture in East Africa.
Minister of Agriculture Augustin said: "In the past twenty years, our agriculture has achieved brilliant results. In the 1980s alone, a total of 60 million hectares of arable land were newly opened up, which is more than two to three times the total arable land area of Germany (Germany was larger at that time than in later times). The total arable land area in the country reached 120 million hectares."
East African officials have always liked to use Germany as a data reference. In addition to East Africa's national attributes, the most important thing is that East Africa knows Germany best.
140 million hectares is about 1.8 billion mu of land. Of course, the scale of land in East Africa is dwarfed by that in the United States, which has about 4 billion mu, or even more than 5 billion mu.
Because the United States had not yet experienced the devastation of the "Black Storm" at that time, it did not pay much attention to environmental issues. Coupled with the Western Development Movement, the cultivated land area in the United States expanded by a full double compared to the 1960s, when the cultivated land in the United States had exceeded 2 billion acres.
East Africa has focused on land development. Although its expansion speed is not slow, it also retired many areas that were "unsuitable" for agricultural development in the 1980s. These areas generally had problems such as water resources.
The arable land area of East Africa is only half of that of the United States, but its population may not be less than that of the United States. In 1890, the population of the United States was more than 60 million, while that of East Africa was at least 50 million. After all, the population of East Africa had exceeded 30 million ten years ago, and with the addition of blacks, the number has exceeded 50 million. Now with the addition of Mozambique and Angola, the total population of East Africa (including blacks) is likely to have approached or exceeded 60 million or even 70 million.
That is to say, East Africa feeds a similar population with half the arable land of the United States.
Of course, this is not the way to calculate it. The United States has been in North America for more than a hundred years, and the colonial history of Spain, France, and Britain is even longer than hundreds of years (Spain established a colonial outpost in Florida in 1565).
Secondly, agriculture in the United States is more commercialized rather than for the so-called "food and clothing" problem. For example, a large amount of agricultural products in the United States are actually used as livestock feed and industrial production raw materials. In this regard, East Africa is certainly not up to the level of the United States at present.
Of course, the agricultural development in East Africa is not aimed at solving the problem of "food and clothing". Instead, Ernst first started from the issue of food security in East African countries' security, and then focused on developing cash crop agriculture.
A large amount of arable land in East Africa is used to produce tropical cash crops, in order to compete with the United States, the world's largest agricultural power, for development.
If East Africa relies solely on grain planting, it will not be able to gain any advantage in the international agricultural market. Not to mention the United States, even Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Russia are all agricultural powerhouses. No matter how much grain East Africa produces, it will be difficult to squeeze into this market.
The most important issue is the channel issue. East Africa has a short history, and what it lacks most in the traditional agricultural field is channels. Therefore, concentrating on developing tropical cash crop planting is the only way for East Africa to play a role in the international agricultural market. As for the food market, it can only be developed slowly.
"However, the overall development level of my country's agriculture is still at a relatively low level, especially in the fields of mechanization and fertilizers, which lag far behind the powerful countries in Europe and the United States."
"By 1889, my country had a total of more than 7,300 agricultural harvesters, of which more than 5,000 were imported from Austria and Germany, and less than 2,000 were domestically produced, most of which were produced in the 1980s. In the early 1980s, Germany probably had more than 20,000 agricultural harvesters. Now it's probably around 70,000 or 80,000. Countries like the United States and the United Kingdom will have even more."
In the early 1980s, the number of harvesters in Germany reached more than 20,000, and now it is almost the 1990s, so the number of agricultural harvesters in Germany has probably increased several times.
So far, the number of agricultural harvesters in East Africa has only reached more than 7,000. This gap is too big. You should know that Germany's arable land area is far less than that of East Africa, only one-sixth of that of East Africa, but the number of agricultural harvesters is more than ten times that of East Africa.
Therefore, on a per-unit-area basis, the penetration rate of agricultural harvesters in East Africa is not even one-seventieth of that in Germany.
"Nowadays, my country is vigorously promoting the research and development of internal combustion engine tractors, and has produced a total of 53 sets of tractors powered by internal combustion engines, which are being piloted in many cities. This is an important breakthrough direction for my country to improve agricultural production efficiency."
Agricultural tractors have always been a key development project in East Africa. Previously, tractors were mainly powered by steam. In the field of internal combustion engines, East Africa is one of the undisputed powers.
"Of course, distant water cannot quench immediate thirst. The current government is mainly promoting the promotion of large-scale livestock in rural areas. In the past decade, the scale of my country's animal husbandry has doubled, which has provided conditions for the development of rural areas and my country's economic construction. In the window period when agricultural tools such as internal combustion engine tractors are popularized and promoted, animal power will probably still be the main source of power for my country's agricultural development in the next 20 to 30 years."
Of course, Augustine should have included black people as well. East Africa was able to almost double the size of its arable land in the 1980s, thanks to the efforts of its black people.
In particular, the construction of water conservancy projects has provided the necessary conditions for opening up a large amount of high-quality arable land in East Africa. The construction of water conservancy projects in the developed agricultural areas of central and eastern East Africa and Somalia has tended to be perfect.
To complete such a large-scale project in such a short period of ten years, in an era when it could only be accomplished by manpower, the cost was unimaginable. The construction of water conservancy projects even became the project with the highest death toll among black people in East Africa, far exceeding that of railway construction.
Although the construction of railways in East Africa is not slow, the amount of railway construction is destined to be incomparable to the construction of water conservancy projects that are springing up everywhere. Many places in East Africa are starting from scratch, and a large number of rivers and swamps need to be dealt with. At the same time, more water diversion channels need to be dug, a large number of reservoirs need to be built, and so on.
The suffering of black people in East Africa is far from over. For example, the large amount of land suitable for agricultural development in Mozambique still requires East Africa to invest a lot of manpower, material and financial resources for development and construction.
Ernst was very satisfied with the report of the Ministry of Agriculture. Agriculture is the foundation of a country, and the agricultural development in East Africa has reached his psychological expectations. Of course, this is only the first step in the agricultural development in East Africa, and the first step has not yet been completed.
There is still a large amount of arable land in East Africa that has not been effectively utilized. Ernst believes that East Africa's land resources are increasing by at least one billion acres. Although not on par with the United States, the difference should not be too big, ensuring its third place in the world.
Currently, the world's number one is the United Kingdom, and the second is the United States, but most of the UK's territory is colonies. If we only compare the mainland, the United States is far ahead of other countries.
The cultivated land area of Tsarist Russia could not expand as rapidly as that of East Africa. As a cold-zone country, Tsarist Russia had fewer crop varieties to choose from, and could not devote all its efforts to the cultivation of tropical cash crops like East Africa. Traditional grain cultivation has not been very profitable in recent years because international grain prices have remained low.
(End of this chapter)
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