Chapter 957 Agriculture, Forestry, Animal Husbandry and Fishing
After Helwein listened to Morse’s opinions, he asked Morse to formulate Kampala’s agricultural development strategy. This can be regarded as an excellent phenomenon in the governance of East African countries.
After all, most officials in East Africa do not have as much experience and family heritage as European aristocratic officials, which makes East African officials rely more on the advice of "experts". The only pity is that practical experts like Morse are too few.
……
In Rhine City, Ernst was also listening to reports from professionals from the Ministry of Agriculture.
"As of 1898, the country's cultivated land area was close to 2.5 billion acres, second only to Tsarist Russia and the United States in the world. In the past eight years, the new cultivated land was mainly in the central and western regions, as well as the southeastern region."
“With the increase in cultivated land, farmland water conservancy facilities have also increased significantly. More than four million black workers have participated in agricultural production activities, and a large number of new water conservancy facilities and reservoirs have been built. In the past five years alone, the number of newly built reservoirs has reached There are more than 20,000, which greatly improves the efficiency of agricultural production. ”
As a country dominated by savanna climate, rainfall distribution in most parts of East Africa is uneven, especially with large seasonal differences, and the construction of water conservancy facilities. , which greatly improved the efficiency of agricultural production in East Africa.
Without water conservancy facilities, land in most areas of East Africa could only be cultivated once a year. However, after the construction of new reservoirs and other water conservancy facilities, water sources were guaranteed, and many lands in East Africa could be cultivated twice a year. It is ripe, and in some areas it can even be ripe three times a year.
This is equivalent to doubling the grain output in East Africa without increasing the area of cultivated land. This shows the outstanding achievements of agricultural water conservancy construction in East Africa.
"In the 1990s, our most important scientific and technological progress was the development and popularization of large vehicles and agricultural machinery. In 1898, the number of tractors nationwide reached more than 14,000, with the highest penetration rate in the Great Lakes and central regions."< br>
East Africa's tractor production technology has been relatively complete. At the same time, as a key science and technology project in East Africa, it mainly gives priority to meeting domestic demand. Currently, East Africa is also the country with the most cars, tractors and other internal combustion engine vehicles in the world.
The secret to the production advantages of agricultural machinery such as automobiles and tractors in East Africa is assembly line production. Of course, on this basis, Ernst also proposed the concept of the entire industry chain.
The clear division of labor and cooperative development among various factories in East Africa will have a huge impact on the industrial production capacity of East Africa. Take the automobile assembly plant in New Frankfurt as an example. Many of its internal parts are not produced by the factory, but are produced by other factories. supply.
Of course, the overall management by the East African government and the formulation of unified standards have greatly improved the reliability of parts and components.
Due to the need for confidentiality, these factories are basically located in the central and inland areas, and the coastal areas adopt European and American standards. As a result, the automobile production plants in Dar es Salaam and Mombasa still use the traditional manual assembly model, which is extremely inefficient.
Of course, East African assembly line models will also be exported in conjunction with the cars produced in these manual factories. The former are generally high-end models, while the latter are low-end models.
After all, assembly line models produce more parts, are more uniform in quality, and are easier to maintain and repair, so they are modeled as "high-end goods."
However, in addition to industry, the main sources of income in the two places include commerce and service industries, which are not available in the inland cities of East Africa.
“The past thirty years have also been a period of great development of our country’s forestry resources. The continuous expansion of the country has led to the continuous expansion of the forest area we have obtained, especially the almost inexhaustible forestry in the Congo Basin. Resources, as for artificial forests, they are mainly rubber forests.”
Before East Africa, the African continent had not been effectively developed for a long time, so it accumulated a huge amount of forestry resources, including a large number of virgin forests in arid Southwest Africa and Somalia. Therefore, at the current stage, the area of deforestation in East Africa is far greater than that of planting. area. And this situation will continue. The area of cities and cultivated land is still on an upward trend, so the plunder of forests will also be a long-term process.
“The livestock industry in East Africa is developing rapidly, especially in high-quality grasslands such as South Africa and Southwest Africa. The main economy in Southwest Africa is livestock industry. At the same time, the development of livestock industry in the western region also allows us to Argentina’s agriculture has formed a certain degree of competition.”
Argentina is a big country in animal husbandry, and it could even be said to be a powerful country in animal husbandry in the 19th century. Although Southwest Africa is dry, it also means that there is a large amount of grassland there. The vast land and sparse population are naturally conducive to the development of large pastures. At the same time, with the construction of the Walvis Bay Railway and Alexandria Port, it has provided access to the sea for agricultural and animal husbandry products in Southwest Africa.
The livestock market mainly targets European countries, which has depressed international beef prices to a certain extent. Of course, the development of livestock industry in Southwest Africa started late, so the current influence is also weak.
"As for fishery resources, they are also in a stage of rapid development, especially the existence of fisheries on the west coast, which has given us a stable source of marine fishery resources in East Africa. In the past eight years, the marine fishing industry in East Africa has quadrupled. With ships , the development of railways and cold food technology not only provides domestic residents with a new source of meat, but also brings huge profits through export to European and American countries.”
The west coast fishery in East Africa is the fifth largest fishery in the world and the largest in the world. It is the only fishery among the world's five largest fisheries that has not undergone large-scale development.
At the same time, on the east coast of East Africa, due to the existence of the Somali Ocean Current, seasonal fishing grounds will be formed, and East Africa is not a politically unstable country like Somalia in the previous life, so East Africa basically has a firm grasp on the resource development of the fishing grounds along the Somali coast. right.
Due to the civil war in Somalia in the previous life, the government and local warlords were corrupt and incompetent, and were unable to effectively manage the Somali coast. Therefore, the entire Somali coast became a paradise for foreign fishing boats.
Of course, the small sampans of Somali fishermen cannot compare with the advanced and professional foreign fishing boats, so foreign fishing boats fished wildly along the coast of Somalia, causing the local fishery resources to deplete and the fishermen to lose their source of income, thus giving birth to the "Somalia" Pirate" profession.
It is true that the original small fishing boats are not good at fishing, but after being equipped with engines and robbing passing merchant ships, they can achieve a class leap. Therefore, the problem of Somali piracy is also a cycle of cause and effect.
Of course, although the fisheries off the coast of Somalia are rich in resources, they cannot be compared with the fisheries on the west coast. Although East Africa has acquired the west coast for a short time, judging from the time when the East African government has vigorously supported the development of the marine fishing industry, the two It happened almost at the same time, so the growth rate of the marine fishing industry on the West Coast was much faster than that on the East Coast.
“The above is basically the basic development situation of my country’s four major industries of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery. Generally speaking, East African agriculture is in a period of rapid and stable development.”
“This rapid and great development has caused The driving force is mainly driven by government policies, the increase in the national population, the development of the transportation industry, etc. "
In terms of policy, the country is in a chess game. The role of the East African government cannot be ignored, and population growth is the driving force for agricultural investment and expansion in East Africa. , the development of transportation industry is also extremely important, especially playing a key role in the development and utilization of fishery resources.
If the transportation conditions in the west are not in place, it is naturally impossible for East Africa to vigorously develop the western marine fishing industry unless it is processed into shelf-stable cans or semi-finished products in cities and factories on the west coast.
The application of refrigeration technology on railways has made it possible to eat relatively fresh seafood products in the interior of East Africa, which has expanded the market scope of the marine fishing industry.
In fact, it was only after the East African railway network was basically formed that the East African marine fishing industry entered a stage of rapid development.
(End of this chapter)