Chapter 1043 Chemical Safety
An important factor limiting agricultural development in East Africa is the fertility problem of East African land. There is no shortage of relatively fertile land in East Africa, such as the volcanic ash soil distribution area in the northern East African Plateau (mainly Kenya) , the Great Lakes area with favorable water and soil conditions, the black soil distribution area in Mozambique, etc.
However, there are many relatively barren lands in East Africa, especially in tropical rainforests or desert areas, so improving soil fertility requires the participation of the fertilizer industry.
Fortunately, during the First Five-Year Plan, the pesticide and fertilizer industry framework in East Africa has been basically completed. During the Second Five-Year Plan, the chemical industry will receive greater support as a weak link in East Africa's basic industries.
The chemical industry is not only related to agriculture-related fields such as pesticides and fertilizers, but also involves the national defense industry. Many chemical products are naturally explosives, or are used in other production links of the national defense industry. Therefore, the chemical industry is in the second five-year plan of East Africa. It occupies an important position in the plan, whether it is agriculture, light or heavy industry, or chemical industry.
Of course, East Africa has many shortcomings in the chemical industry compared with countries such as Germany, but it depends on how to distinguish it. The petroleum industry in East Africa should actually also belong to a category of chemical industry, but because East Africa attaches great importance to petroleum, it is distinguished separately. For management, East Africa's petroleum industry is already quite developed, which also means that East Africa occupies a dominant position in the petrochemical industry. Similarly, the rubber industry is also closely related to the chemical industry, so the true level of East Africa's chemical industry still needs to be verified.
Of course, Ernst will not play a big role in the development of East Africa's chemical industry for the time being. He is very unfamiliar with this field. He can only elevate the chemical industry to a strategic position in the development of East Africa's own industry. It's quite rare.
For countries with a planned economic system like East Africa, it is easiest to achieve results when they focus on developing a certain field. Therefore, as long as there are no major problems in the direction, with the development of the Second Five-Year Plan, East Africa will The chemical industry will obviously make greater progress than during the First Five-Year Plan period.
Back to the topic, Ernst said to Fingel: "The Ministry of Agriculture can do a lot of work, such as meteorological research, agricultural structure, breeding of fine varieties, land improvement and management, etc. Don't just focus on it. Agricultural machinery, chemical fertilizers, and pesticide production, when the industrial base has not reached a certain level, these things It is impossible to change things out of thin air. As the Second Five-Year Plan progresses, there will always be developments, so don’t be too anxious.”
In increasing agricultural output, chemical fertilizers and pesticides are the most effective, but other methods are also available. It’s not that it has no effect at all, it’s just that without increasing the amount of chemical fertilizers, the amount of pesticides used is more likely to produce results.
Moreover, as a veteran, Ernst knows the importance of pesticides and fertilizers, but the sustainable development of agriculture is also essential.
“Chemical fertilizers and pesticides, especially the production of pesticides, must be cautious. The safety of many pesticides is not clear, so we cannot completely rely on the protective effect of pesticides on crops. Harmless to agricultural products does not mean harmless to the human body. Ecologically harmless, to put it mildly, some pesticides are poisons if not handled properly. If water sources are polluted on a large scale, the consequences for the soil will be disastrous!"
At this point, Ernst himself broke into a sweat. It seems that he has not paid attention to the issue of chemical industry production safety for a long time.
A large number of chemical plants were built in East Africa during the First Five-Year Plan. These chemical plants may not be without safety hazards. It seems that we need to specifically mention it to the relevant departments later and ask them to conduct a major screening of the chemical industry in East Africa. .
Safety hazards in the chemical industry are no joke. In previous lives, both the United States and India had serious chemical disasters, especially the poison gas leak in Bhopal, India. The casualties were so great that they were included in history textbooks.
The Bhopal poison gas incident in India caused at least 25,000 direct deaths, 550,000 indirect deaths, and more than 200,000 permanent disabilities. It was worse than the abnormally high temperatures in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Bhopal poison gas incident was caused by a US-invested pesticide factory in India in a previous life. If a disaster of this scale broke out in East Africa, it would be almost equivalent to the entire population of Dar es Salaam being killed. After all, The total population of Dar es Salaam is only over 800,000.
And who can be sure how much India and the United States covered up the Bhopal gas incident in the previous life? The apparent disability and death of more than 700,000 people was enough to shock the world. At that time, the Soviet Union and the United States His mortal enemy is still alive, and the Bhopal gas incident is closely related to the United States. The more I think about Ernst, the more terrifying I feel. The world's chemical industry is currently at a relatively rough stage of development, and even East Africa is no exception. After all, human beings' knowledge of chemical substances is far from insufficient. Therefore, a comprehensive survey of the national chemical industry has been carried out. A directional survey is necessary.
After Ernst ended the dialogue with the Ministry of Agriculture, he approached the chemical industry management department for a talk.
Ernst said bluntly: "The development of the chemical industry cannot be careless. Some chemicals have potential hazards such as toxicity and explosion. Therefore, chemical industry production safety is an important part of the development of the chemical industry during the Second Five-Year Plan, including the layout of the chemical industry. You also Check for deficiencies in the original plan , The unreasonable layout of some chemical plants must be corrected in a timely manner."
As for what Ernst said, the industrial department did not immediately agree, but said: "Your Highness, the problem is that some of our projects have already started construction. , if we do it all over again, the loss will be too great.”
Ernst is naturally aware of this. He said: "Projects that have already started construction will proceed as planned for the time being! However, construction standards must be improved, strict production processes must be formulated, and waste must be handled properly. Process.”
Two-Five Strategies The plan has begun to be implemented, and some projects have even been constructed since the end of the First Five-Year Plan, and the projects are half completed. Naturally, it is impossible to overthrow them all at this time, so we can only adopt a delaying strategy and wait a few years to upgrade the industrial technology. Eliminate these possible hidden dangers.
Since the issue of production safety rectification in the chemical industry is discussed, other industrial sectors are naturally indispensable.
Ernst emphasized: "In the past, we were accustomed to using black laborers to perform some risky tasks in engineering construction, but this is not feasible in the industrial field. After all, these black laborers have no professional qualifications and may cause serious problems in the production process."
After all, why the Bhopal gas incident occurred in India in the previous life has a lot to do with the quality of Indian employees. Based on Ernst’s understanding of Indians, they are relatively perfunctory, especially at the military level. , crashing planes and sinking ships at every turn, if it were a normal country, it would be ashamed of itself.
After all, departments like the military, which should pay the most attention to disciplines and rules and regulations, can fool things. Other industries and government departments in India are certainly not much better. Therefore, it is completely reasonable for the Bhopal gas incident to occur in India.
Although black people in East Africa are not Indians, in this era, their understanding of things is probably not as good as that of Indians. Indians have seen a lot of the world under the rule of the British, and black people in East Africa have done the work for East Africa. It only takes a few decades for a cow to become a horse.
“Of course, in addition to black workers, we must also strengthen safety education for our people, strengthen production training, formulate and supervise the implementation of rules and regulations. Production safety is no small matter, especially in the chemical industry and some industries that have certain risks. industry.”
During Ernst's endless education, the East African industrial sector began to discuss and study the issue of "production safety", which also meant that during the Second Five-Year Plan, the work of the government and enterprises was further increased. However, this did also make East Africa more important in the new era. A round of industrial development tightened the rough development of industry.
(End of this chapter)