Chapter 669 Linkage between industry and agriculture
Under the economic transformation, it is natural to avoid the largest industry in East Africa, which is agriculture. Industrialization does not mean abandoning agriculture, but further improves agricultural production efficiency.
For this reason, Ernst said at the government work conference: "Agriculture is the foundation of the national economy and a prerequisite for survival and all production. Therefore, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, we must still pay attention to For agricultural development issues, the focus is on continuously improving agricultural production efficiency, especially promoting the diversified development of agriculture, making every effort to leverage the advantages of East African agriculture, and achieving linked development between agriculture and industry.”
Prior to this, Ernst would not talk about the coordinated development of agriculture and industry, because in the past the industrial scale in East Africa was not as large as the handicraft industry. Now that he has finally saved some money, he has the confidence to promote the common development between agriculture and industry.
“What is agricultural diversification? How does it relate to our agriculture in East Africa? Agricultural diversification means not putting eggs in one basket. For example, in terms of staple foods, our two major staple foods in East Africa are wheat and Rice, but we must know that the land in East Africa is far more talented in growing corn, millet, sorghum, soybeans and other food crops than other countries in the world.”
Of course, these latter food crops can easily produce high yields in East Africa, but it is difficult to surpass wheat and rice in terms of taste. However, turnips and greens have their own preferences and can always find a suitable group of people, so the recipes of East Africans have been diversified from the beginning.
“Agriculture first solves the problem of food, which is also the first impression most people have of agriculture, but how agriculture provides basic conditions for industrial development is easily overlooked.”
“ Take the textile industry as an example. The main raw materials of the textile industry, cotton, hemp, raw silk, etc., all come from agricultural production activities. In the 19th century, the textile industry was the world's largest. Big Industry. ”
“As the first industrialized country, Britain’s early industrialization can be said to have been driven entirely by the textile industry, including the American slave trade, which was also stimulated by the demand for labor in cotton plantations. . ”
“In the 19th century, agriculture provided most of the raw materials for industry, and the second was the mining industry.”
In the future, with the advancement of science and technology, there will also be a chemical industry, but the chemical industry is still inseparable from agriculture and mining to provide the most basic raw materials. Its essence is to expand the application of raw material properties.
In East Africa, agriculture and mining are relatively prosperous, but they are not considered developed because the production efficiency is still not up to the level of European and American countries. Of course, this does not include Eastern European countries such as Tsarist Russia.
To be honest, it is more difficult for countries like Tsarist Russia to develop agriculture than in East Africa. This is determined by the climate, whether in terms of output, category, or area.
Tsarist Russia has nothing more than the largest area of high-quality black soil arable land in the world, but apart from this, it has no advantages. The black soil is the most fertile, but the water and heat conditions are so poor that it can only produce one season a year.
And the effective land area of Tsarist Russia is much smaller than that of East Africa. Compared with the effective land area, East Africa is the first in the world, the second is the United States, and then the Far Eastern Empire.
The cultivated land in East Africa is mainly provided by several large plateaus, which naturally cannot be compared with the contiguous great plains of North America. The Congo rainforest and desert alone occupy nearly three million square kilometers of land in East Africa.
But there are also huge Rocky Mountains in the western United States, which suddenly occupy one-third of the area of the United States, and the land area of the United States is much smaller than that of East Africa.
Of course, the agricultural conditions in East Africa also have their own disadvantages, and that is the quality of the land. However, the quality of the land mainly depends on later management and improvement. In the 21st century, a lot of land relies on chemical fertilizers and scientific farming methods, and again How can we say that the land quality in East Africa is overall better than that of the Far Eastern Empire.
When East Africa takes over Mozambique, East Africa will still have its own black soil. Although the area of black soil in Mozambique is much smaller, it will also fill a gap in the soil of East Africa. Ernst continued: "So you have to see the correlation between agriculture and industry. The Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Industry should communicate more. To put it simply, it turns out that the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Foreign Trade have more contacts because we mainly use the best Basic grain exports are the main focus, but now that the Ministry of Industry is involved, it is necessary to increase the added value of agricultural products, so that re-exports can gain greater value and extend the industrial chain.”
"For example, canned products. Our canned fruit industry in East Africa is very popular in Tsarist Russia. At the same time, it solves the problem that fruits are not durable and difficult to store, opening up its sales, and related factories solve the problem of some citizens. Employment issues. ”
“Or maybe it’s our sisal industry. The sisal industry in East Africa has developed rapidly in recent years. However, in the past, the sisal processing plants in East Africa were inefficient and had small production capacity. After nearly 20 years, After years of hard work, East African sisal processing has finally got rid of external dependence. We can meet customer needs for various industrial products such as hemp rope and linen cloth. "
Ernst said nonstop, mainly. In order to enlighten the subordinates, after all, sitting in the office all day long will not find business opportunities.
“Finally, there is the issue of animal husbandry. Animal husbandry is one of the three important components of East African agriculture.”
At present, East African agriculture is mainly divided into three major parts, namely cash crops. Planting, food crop cultivation, and finally animal husbandry.
"In addition to solving the problems of meat, dairy products, leather, and other raw materials, the most important thing for animal husbandry is to provide power for industrial and agricultural production, so the problem of animal husbandry expansion will still continue."
The steam engine is such a silly thing These bulky things are unavailable in many places in East Africa, and they are difficult to move. Not to mention that the same is true in East Africa and Europe.
The main forces in agriculture are still human and animal power. In addition to industrial and agricultural production needs, transportation and logistics are also extremely dependent on animal power.
So expanding the scale of animal husbandry is very important to East Africa currently and is one of the important parts of improving productivity in East Africa.
Livestock and cash crop cultivation actually contribute more to East Africa’s economy than food crop cultivation. Of course, food issues are the foundation. If you don’t have enough to eat, you don’t have the right to talk about development.
Everything in East Africa is based on the grain cultivation industry that meets domestic demand and can also be exported. This involves an important role of agriculture in the early stages of industrialization, which is the accumulation of original capital.
In the early days of East Africa, military spending and national construction funds relied heavily on the food planting industry, and the cultivation cycle of cash crop planting was longer than that of food crops, such as tea, rubber, coffee, etc. It took seven or eight years of development in East Africa before it began to generate benefits, and it was only in recent years that its scale reached a level that could compete with international competition.
The truth is very simple. The first step in developing the local area in East Africa is to solve the problem of food for immigrants. Therefore, early agriculture must be based on the cultivation of food crops. Only after the problem of food and clothing is solved can we focus on profits. Higher economic crop cultivation and animal husbandry development.
“In short, agricultural development can promote industrial development. Agriculture is the dominant industry in East Africa. The industrial sector in East Africa must actively connect with the agricultural sector to further transmit the agricultural advantages into the advantages of industrial development. Multi-sector collaboration is also a large-scale The inevitable choice and future trend of national governance,” Ernst emphasized in the end.
(End of this chapter)