Chapter 873 Agricultural Structural Adjustment
Of course, it is definitely inaccurate to say that there are no natives who grow cotton in West Africa. East Africa sends a large number of black natives to West Africa every year. A large part of these natives have been "educated" in East Africa for several years. However, what the fate of the natives who flowed from East Africa to West Africa will be, can only be left to fate.
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First town city.
"Your Highness, regarding this round of agricultural production structure adjustment, it has been preliminarily determined that the new land for agricultural development in East Africa in the future will be concentrated in the central region, Mozambique and Angola. Among them, Mozambique and Angola are new grain crop planting areas." Minister of Agriculture Goldstein reported to Ernst.
In this round, East Africa will continue to adjust its agricultural production structure. Mozambique and Angola will become new grain planting bases. By the way, many areas in the eastern region will be transformed from grain planting to cash crop planting.
Ernst said: "In the future, East Africa's planting industry should form five major regions, including the east, central, west and south, to ensure national food security. However, at present, my country should pay more attention to the development of commercial agriculture, vigorously develop cash crop planting, promote mechanization and fertilizer industry popularization, and enhance the competitiveness of East Africa's agricultural economy."
Up to now, the bulk of the main income for East African countries still comes from agriculture, which accounts for more than 75% of the national tax revenue. Although it has declined, it is still the main body of the East African economy, so the East African government cannot ignore this basic foundation.
Moreover, the decline in the proportion of agriculture in tax revenue does not mean a decrease in quantity. On the contrary, it has increased significantly.
With the large-scale promotion of cash crop planting in East Africa and the adjustment of agricultural structure, the profit margin of East African agriculture has actually increased.
It has formed the core competitiveness of the East African advantageous crop group including rubber, cotton, linen, tea, tobacco, spices, fruits and vegetables, etc., and has surpassed other regions in the world in the field of tropical cash crop cultivation to become the world's largest tropical cash crop grower.
Of course, the current major agricultural structural adjustments in East Africa are concentrated in the east. Because agriculture in the east was formed early and is large in scale, its agricultural production structure is no longer in line with the general trend of agricultural development in East Africa.
On the contrary, the tropical cash crop planting industry in Somalia has become a new benchmark for the current agricultural economic development in East Africa. This means that after solving the basic problem of food and clothing, the East African governments have devoted more energy to agricultural income in East Africa.
Of course, this does not mean that East Africa does not attach importance to the cultivation of food crops. On the contrary, it attaches more importance to it. In the new cycle of agricultural structural adjustment, East Africa’s food crop planting policy is mainly reflected in the word expansion.
First of all, it should be made clear that the demand for food crop cultivation in East Africa is constantly increasing, because the population of East Africa is in a stage of rapid growth, and the rate of population growth is directly proportional to the development of basic farmland in East Africa.
Therefore, on the basis of the original grain crop planting area, East Africa will make every effort to develop the southern land, that is, the newly developed land headed by the southern Mozambique Plain, to form a new grain agricultural planting base and form a new high-quality grain agricultural production area of more than 10 million hectares.
Prior to this, the four major grain agricultural planting areas in East Africa had already taken shape, namely the coastal plains, the East African Plateau, the Great Lakes region, and the central plateau.
The East African Plateau and the Great Lakes region are integrated, but are divided into two major growing areas of rice and wheat according to precipitation.
The potential of the Central Plateau region is still enormous. Currently, only the Matabele Province is being developed in the Central Plateau region. The land vacancy rate in provinces like Hohenzollern and Swabia is still relatively high.
The Hohenzollern Province, which is the western part of Zambia in the previous life, has arable land accounting for more than 40% of the country's land, but the development of East Africa has only reached about 8%. If it were not for the rise of a number of cities, the development rate would be pitifully low. The same is true for the Swabian Province.
In fact, the industrial output value of these two regions exceeds that of agriculture. It should be noted that the ratio of industry to agriculture in Matabele Province, the largest industrial province in East Africa, is not as large as that of these two provinces. Therefore, the development of the central region is still a long process, and it will take time to reach the level of the eastern region.
"Last year, Somalia's agricultural economic output value was the most prominent among all regions in East Africa. Most of its agricultural products were exported, accounting for more than 80% of Somalia's total agricultural output. It has become an important agricultural production base for supplying the European market, bringing in a lot of economic benefits."
"At present, we intend to replicate the advanced experience of Somalia and the northern industrial belt in the eastern coastal areas of East Africa, especially in the New Württemberg Province in northern Mozambique, two regions with natural location advantages, with the help of ports, railways and roads, to achieve new breakthroughs in the export of agricultural products and raw materials to Central and Eastern Europe."
After all, Somalia and northwestern East Africa, without an industrial base and large-scale national industrial investment, can only vigorously develop cash crop planting, and the result is that the situation is quite good.
Taking advantage of its proximity to the main shipping route between Asia and Europe, exports to the Eurasian continent have reached new highs every year, promoting the rapid development of the regional economy.
"Somalia has significant regional advantages, and the northern industrial region is also driven by Mombasa. However, compared with the northern industry, the development of Somalia is actually restricted because there is no railway. Therefore, the three provinces in the Somali region have reported to us on the issue of railway construction, and we should build two horizontal railways to relieve the pressure of agricultural products from the Juba River and the Shabelle River to the east."
The Somali region actually involves four provinces, namely the Northern Province and Juba Province, which belong entirely to the Somali region, while Turkana Province and Eastern Province have parts of their land in the Somali region.
However, the capital of Eastern Province is Mombasa, which has a very strong ability to drive the local area. In addition, Eastern Province is actually distributed in clusters, with radial roads centered on Mombasa, so the local demand for railways is not strong.
Turkana Province, Juba Province and Northern Province are three large provinces in East Africa. Juba Province and Northern Province are narrow and long along the Juba River and Shabelle River respectively. The navigability of the two rivers is poor and the transportation demand is large, so railways are highly valued.
Turkana Province actually has a north-south railway, but it is located in the western part of the province. The Eastern Somali region is located in the interior of Somalia, and its development is inconvenient without the support of the railway.
Therefore, the three provinces have common interests in the demand for railways. For Turkana Province, the opening of railways in both Northern Province and Juba Province will be beneficial to the development of its eastern region.
In response to this request, Ernst replied: "Let them communicate with the railway department. The Ministry of Railways did have a plan for a railway in Somalia before, but it was part of the eastern coastal railway and ran from north to south. It actually did not have a big impact on the economies of the two provinces."
Currently, both the Northern Province and Juba Province rely on export-oriented agriculture as their pillar industry, so the railway connection with the southern part of the country is not as urgent as the construction of riverside railways within the province.
In Ernst's opinion, these two east-west riverside railways are indeed more important to the two provinces, so in principle he supports the construction of railways in the two places, but this depends on whether the East African railway system has the resources to invest.
These are all minor problems. Although the railway department already has a systematic plan, some railway lines can be temporarily shelved. For example, the Walvis Bay Railway can be placed after the Somalia Railway. After all, the economic output of Walvis Bay is not even a fraction of that of the Somalia region.
(End of this chapter)
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