African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 873 Agricultural Structural Adjustment

Of course, it is definitely not accurate to say that there are no indigenous people growing cotton in West Africa. East Africa sends a large number of black indigenous people to West Africa every year. A large part of these indigenous people have been "educated" in East Africa for several years. However, East Africa What will happen to the indigenous people who flow to West Africa? We can only leave it to fate.

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 The first town.

"His Royal Highness, regarding this round of agricultural production structure adjustment, it has been initially determined that in the future, new agricultural development land in East Africa will be mainly concentrated in the center, Mozambique and Angola, among which Mozambique and Angola are new food crop growing areas." The Ministry of Agriculture. Minister Goldstein reported to Ernst.

 This round of East Africa will continue to adjust its agricultural production structure, with Mozambique and Angola becoming new bases for grain planting. Incidentally, many areas in the eastern region will change 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, our country must pay more attention to the development of commercial agriculture, vigorously develop the cash crop planting industry, and promote mechanization and chemical fertilizers. Popularize industry and enhance the competitiveness of East Africa’s agricultural economy.”

Up to now, the main income of East African countries is still agriculture, accounting 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 there is no reason why the East African government does not pay attention to this basic market. .

 Furthermore, the decrease in the proportion of agriculture in taxation does not mean that the quantity has decreased, but has been greatly increased.

 With the large-scale promotion of cash crop cultivation in East Africa and the adjustment of agricultural structure, the profitability of East African agriculture has actually increased.

 Having formed the core competitiveness of the East African dominant crop group with rubber, cotton and linen, tea, tobacco, spices, fruits and vegetables, etc., it has surpassed other regions in the world in the field of tropical cash crop cultivation and has become the world's largest tropical cash crop cultivation country.

Of course, the current major agricultural structural adjustment in East Africa is concentrated in the east. Because agriculture in the east was formed early and has a large scale, its agricultural production institutions are no longer in line with the general trend of agricultural development in East Africa.

 First of all, it must be clear that the demand for food crop cultivation in East Africa is constantly rising, because the population in East Africa is in a stage of rapid growth, and the population growth rate is directly proportional to the development of basic farmland in East Africa.

 Previously, the four major grain agricultural planting areas in East Africa were the coastal plain area, the East African Plateau area, the Great Lakes area, and the central plateau area.

Therefore, based on the original planting area of ​​grain crops, East Africa will make every effort to develop the southern land, that is, the newly developed land headed by the southern Mozambique plains, to form a new grain agriculture planting base and form a new high-quality grain agriculture covering more than 10 million hectares. production area.

On the contrary, the tropical cash crop cultivation industry in Somalia has become the new benchmark for the current agricultural economic development in East Africa. This actually means that after solving the basic problem of food and clothing, the East African government has invested more energy in agricultural income in East Africa.

Of course, this does not mean that East Africa does not pay attention to the cultivation of food crops, but that it pays more attention to it. In the new cycle of agricultural structural adjustment, East Africa’s food crop planting policy is mainly reflected in the word expansion.

 The East African Plateau Region and the Great Lakes Region are integrated, but are divided into two major planting areas: rice and wheat based on precipitation.

The potential of the Central Plateau is still huge. At present, only Matabele Province is mainly developed in the Central Plateau. The land idle rate in Hohenzollern and Swabia provinces is still high.

The Hohenzollern Province was the western part of Zambia in the previous life. The arable land accounted for more than 40% of the land, but the development rate in East Africa only reached about 8%. If it were not for the rise of a number of cities, the development rate would be even lower. Unfortunately, this is also the case in Swabia. In fact, the industrial output value of these two regions exceeds that of agriculture. You must know that the industrial and agricultural ratio of Matabele Province, the largest industrial scale in East Africa, is not as big as the gap between these two provinces. Therefore, the development of the central region is still a long process. If you want to reach the level of the eastern region, It will take time to fill in.

“Last year, Somalia’s agricultural economic output value was the most outstanding among all regions in East Africa. Most of its agricultural products were exported, accounting for more than 80% of the total agricultural output in Somalia. It has become an important agricultural production base for the European market, bringing in a large number of Economy Profit."

“Currently, we plan to replicate the advanced development experience of Somalia and the Northern Industrial Belt in the eastern coastal areas of East Africa, especially in the two areas of New Württemberg Province in northern Mozambique that have natural location advantages. With the help of ports and railways, highway to achieve new breakthroughs in the export of agricultural products and raw materials to Central and Eastern Europe.”

 In the final analysis, Somalia and northwestern East Africa, without an industrial base and large-scale investment in national industry, can only vigorously develop cash crop cultivation, and the results are good.

Taking advantage of being close to the main Eurasian sea route, exports to the Eurasian continent have hit 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 Somali region is currently restricted in development because there is no railway. Therefore, the three provinces in Somalia have to deal with the issue of railway construction. It was reported to us that two horizontal railways should be built to relieve the pressure on agricultural products from the Juba River and the Shabelle River to the east.”

 The Somali region actually involves four provinces, namely Northern Province and Juba Province. These two provinces belong entirely to the Somali region, while Turkana Province and Eastern Province have part of their land in the Somali region.

However, the capital of Oriental Province is Mombasa, which has a strong ability to drive the local area. In addition, Oriental Province is actually distributed in a cluster. Through radial roads with Mombasa as the core, 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 narrowly distributed along the Juba River and Shabelle River respectively, and the navigation capabilities of the two rivers are poor. The demand for transportation is huge, so we attach great importance to railways.

Turkana Province actually has a north-south railway, but it is located in the west of the province. The eastern Somali region is located in the interior of Somalia, and it is inconvenient to develop without railways.

Therefore, the three provinces have common interests in railway demand. For Turkana Province, the opening of railways in both Northern Province and Juba Province will be conducive 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 is part of the eastern coastal railway and runs north-south. It does not have an economic impact on the two provinces." big."

 At present, both Northern Province and Juba Province have export-oriented agriculture as their pillar industry, so the railway connection with the southern region of the country is actually not as urgent as the construction of railways along the river in the province.

In Ernst’s view, these two east-west railways along the river are indeed more important to the two provinces, so in principle he supports the construction of railways between the two places, but this depends on whether the East African railway system has resources to invest.

These are all minor problems. Although the railway department already has a systematic plan, some railway lines can be put on hold temporarily. For example, the Walvis Bay Railway can be placed after the Somali Railway. After all, the economic output of Walvis Bay Port is only a fraction of that of Somalia. Nothing compares.

 (End of this chapter)