Chapter 1406 Food Security
In March, the North Lake Province in East Africa entered the rainy season, and heavy rain suddenly fell, nourishing the lush seedlings in the rice fields, neat fields, rivers, ponds and lakes distributed intertwined, showing a vibrant vitality.
Securities held a black umbrella and took care of the imperial emperor carefully, while Ernst was wearing a raincoat to check the current agricultural development in the Great Lakes region.
The rain was not small at this time, so even with an umbrella on his head, a lot of rain still splashed onto the hat of the raincoat and then flowed down the brim of the hat.
The officials of Beidahu Province were also excited to introduce the current agricultural situation in Beidahu Province to His Majesty the Emperor.
Like Ernst, the senior official Manfred stood on the mechanized farming road rolled by gravel, gravel and soil next to the field canal.
Manfred, in the wind and rain, said to Ernst as calm and loud as possible: "Your Majesty, the arrival of this year's rain is similar to the speculation of the meteorological department of our province, so if you don't expect it, this year should be another bumper year."
Ens nodded and said: "The agricultural development status of the Great Lakes region directly determines the agricultural development of the country. Good weather and rain are naturally better. The food in the entire Great Lakes region is the iron rice bowl of the imperial people."
In fact, the climate of the Great Lakes region is one of the most stable areas in the major agricultural areas of East Africa. The precipitation distribution is relatively even in the two rainy seasons throughout the year. Moreover, because it is close to the Congo Basin, even in the dry season, it is impossible for a drop of rain to be here.
Of course, this is the overall situation of most areas of Beida Lake Province. If it is the outer edge of the northeast of the province, the rainwater situation will not be so optimistic.
However, the Great Lakes area is not a place to harvest at all. The rivers are intertwined here, and there are many lakes with abundant water sources. Even if it encounters drought, it is impossible to lack water.
Manfred's next words also proved this. He said proudly: "In order to secure the iron rice bowl of the people of the whole country, our province has made many efforts over the years."
"As of 1920, the area of arable land in our province reached more than 94 million mu. Moreover, in recent years, with water diversion and irrigation and land management, the area of arable land has continued to increase. By the end of the 5th Five-Year Plan, Beida Lake Province has cultivated arable land in arable land. It is a foregone conclusion that the land area exceeds 100 million mu. "
"Most of it are irrigated farmland and irrigated land. The rice planting area and output have been ranked first in the country for many years. The output of important grain crops such as wheat, corn, and soybeans is also among the top in the country."
Nearly 100 million mu of arable land, accounting for almost 30% of the area of Beida Lake Province. It can be seen that the agriculture in Beida Lake Province actually still has a lot of room for development.
In fact, there are three provinces around the Great Lakes, and the arable land around the Great Lakes is close to 400 million mu.
So, Ernst said happily: "Agriculture in the Great Lakes, especially grain cultivation, accounts for nearly one-quarter of the country's total grain output. This is the cornerstone of the development of the empire and cannot be shaken."
"Bei Dahu Province, as an important agricultural production base in the Great Lakes region, has a heavy task, especially the problems of how to coordinate local ecology and agricultural development are more prominent."
"For example, wetland protection, soil and water conservation, comprehensive soil management, etc. In fact, after these years of development, my country's agriculture has long passed the stage of blindly pursuing output."
"So, on this basis, agricultural development should pay more attention to quality, while maintaining agricultural production, taking into account the harmonious coexistence between man and nature."
East Africa is a country with overproduction of agriculture. Relying on more than 2 billion mu of arable land, this is more than enough for East Africa, which has a population of less than 200 million, whether in production or life.
In addition, this also takes into account the impact of factors such as improving agricultural technology, increasing pesticide and fertilizer output, improving the quality of agricultural personnel, etc. on agricultural yields. Therefore, there is no doubt that even if East Africa no longer expands its arable land area, grain output will continue to increase due to other factors.
Enst said: "Since the last century, international food prices and market demand have remained at low levels. Although the population of the empire has increased, it has maintained a dynamic balance with current food production."
" Therefore, continuing to blindly expand the scale of arable land is no longer in line with our country's basic national conditions. Under this premise, developing ecological agriculture and high-quality agriculture are the way out for East Africa's agriculture in the future."
The reason why ecological problems are mentioned is that many places in East Africa have indeed encountered related problems after decades of development, especially in the intersection of grasslands and deserts, due to the destruction of vegetation, the area of desert is expanded.
After all, overall, East Africa is a relatively arid country. There is the Somalia Desert in the northeast of East Africa, the Namib Desert and the Kalahari Desert in the southwest, and the Sahara Desert in the north. This is just a desert, including sand, arid grasslands and other places.
In addition, the development of rainforest borders has also encountered problems, large-scale deforestation, which has caused soil erosion in forest areas such as the Congo rainforest, which has led to increased sand content in rivers such as the Congo River, Zambési River, and Nile River.
In short, the ecology of many areas in East Africa is relatively fragile.
This is actually understandable. East Africa is no longer the colony with a population of only one hundred million many years ago, but a superpopular country with a population of 200 million. At present, the only countries with a population exceeding East Africa are the Far East Empire and India.
As such a large population, the impact on the ecology will naturally be very significant, especially for East Africa, where the ecology is relatively fragile.
After all, even a "selected place" like the United States, with its population just exceeding 100 million, the United States' ecology is rapidly disintegrating, and the problems of large-scale sandstorms and vegetation damage are becoming increasingly prominent.
So East Africa, which has a more populous population, will only be more serious on this issue, and this also involves the destructive development of East Africa in the past few decades.
Although East Africa has a huge land area, which means that East Africa's population density is actually much smaller than that of Europe and the United States, the problem is obviously not that simple, because the population distribution in East Africa is very uneven.
As for the local area of East Africa, in fact, the vast majority of the population lives in the livable zone in the central region, which is the so-called quaternary rainforest zone in East Africa. It can be vaguely understood as a transition zone of grasslands and rainforests, and the area of this area is actually only 4 million square kilometers, which is less than one-third of the total local area of East Africa.
This is actually equivalent to the livable area of the Far East Empire. The livable area of the Far East Empire is about 400 to 5 million square kilometers.
Of course, the population of the Far East Empire is more than twice that of East Africa, and the industrial level is backward, which makes the Far East Empire's environmental deterioration far worse than that of East Africa. Just a fuel use problem has caused many mountains and forests in the Far East Empire to be destroyed. Driven by East African energy policies in recent years, East African residents can at least use clean energy such as coal, natural gas, and electricity. Compared with direct burning of firewood, coal is indeed a type of clean energy.
However, in this era, the environmental problems in East Africa obviously cannot be compared with the Far East Empire or India. After all, the development levels are different and the issues considered are also different. East Africa is an industrial country, so it should be compared with European and American countries for more reference.
In Europe and the United States, the livable land of the United States is about 6 million square kilometers, but it should be noted that the area of the United States is only more than 7 million square kilometers.
Europe is even more popular with God. In terms of land quality, terrain, water sources and other natural conditions, Europe is now the most livable place in the world.
Of course, livable is a concept without a unified standard. As for the so-called livable land area in East Africa, the doped water is relatively large.
However, compared with the land of East Africa, it is already quite difficult to piece together so much livable land area. At least compared with Russia, the overall natural situation in East Africa is much better.
High official Manfred replied: "Your Majesty is what our province has been doing in recent years. Although Beida Lake Province is one of the most important grain production bases in the national positioning, we have also put a lot of effort into ecology and industry."
"Take the scale of our province's arable land as an example, although it ranks among the forefront of the country, this is the result of our restraint. In order to protect some wetlands and forests, we have built a series of protected areas. At the same time, in the development of new arable land, we have learned more from the past experience and lessons and attached importance to the opinions of professionals."
"If this were not the case, then the arable land in our province would have exceeded 100 million mu, and it would not be a big problem even to reach 150 million mu."
Manfred is not talking big. In fact, if he really follows the land development model of the Far East Empire, Beida Lake Province can build more than 200 million acres of arable land.
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Of course, food cannot be sold at the moment, and the East African central government will not put eggs in a basket for food security reasons. The Beida Lake Province wants to expand the arable land area in this way, and it also requires the consent of the East African government.
The so-called food security is not only for foreign countries, but also for East Africa. For example, the five major grain production bases in East Africa are the Great Lakes Region, the Eastern Plateau Agricultural Zone (the non-Great Lakes Region of the East African Plateau), the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Zambieci River, the Southern Agricultural Zone and the Western Agricultural Zone.
In addition to these five major grain-producing areas, there are also some small major grain-producing areas. It can be said that large-scale grain-producing areas are built in East, East, South, North and Central in East Africa.
After all, it is obvious that a country's food is completely concentrated in one place. Today, the Great Lakes region's grain production accounts for one-quarter of the country's total, and according to the development potential of the Great Lakes region, it is fully capable of increasing it to 50%.
This is obviously unacceptable to the East African government. If the capital of East Africa is in the Great Lakes region, it would be fine to control nearly half of the grain output, which would help the central government control the whole country through grain. The problem is that Rhine is not in the Great Lakes region, so the share of grain production in the Great Lakes region cannot exceed 50% of the country.
In addition, there is no need to concentrate arable land in East Africa on the Great Lakes. Although the Great Lakes region has great agricultural development potential and the natural conditions are the best in East Africa, the specific conditions in other places are actually not bad.
As for the grain production in the Great Lakes region, the scope acceptable to the East African government is that it accounts for no more than one-third of the total food production in the country.
One of the important reasons for this is that East Africa is now a country with overproduction of food, and the grain output in other regions is sufficient to maintain the basic demand in the region. In this case, it is insignificant to produce more food in the Great Lakes region.
Moreover, at this stage, East Africa intends to transfer part of its grain production capacity to the Great Lakes region, allowing it to undertake food security tasks in some ecologically vulnerable areas.
This is also the reason why the arable land area in the Great Lakes area is still expanding, but this expansion is not disorderly and has always been regulated by the East African government.
In fact, if the Great Lakes region is allowed to blindly expand the scale of cultivated land and increase grain production without interfering, and completely follow market rules, relying on its superior natural conditions, it may be possible to "screw" many grain-producing areas in East Africa.
Just like the international food market, if a country allows East Africa and the United States to enter its own market freely, then the country's agricultural system is basically not far from being finished.
When the local agricultural system is destroyed, its lifeline will be held by East Africa or the United States.
In fact, this was the case in the African continent in the previous life. Many African countries' agriculture cannot achieve independent development, but rather belongs to the secondary agricultural system of the sovereign state. They can only plant cash crops and cannot control the independent pricing power. Once they disobey the sovereign state, they may fall into a food crisis under the sanctions of the sovereign state.
The food crisis is a very terrifying thing. Once people are not full, other problems will follow one after another, and this regime is not far from collapse.
So, countries that were able to achieve agricultural self-sufficiency in their previous lives have actually achieved an amazing achievement, and only a few countries such as Tanzania, South Africa, and Zambia have achieved this in their previous lives.
In short, the importance of food security is self-evident, so the East African government cannot allow the disorderly expansion of agriculture in the Great Lakes region.
So Ernst emphasized again: "Agriculture is the foundation of the Great Lakes, but it must be done within one's ability, especially in the current situation of the international market."
"Also, in recent years, the industry in the Great Lakes region has also been in a stage of rapid development. The Great Lakes region is one of the relatively densely populated places. However, in the past, industrial development and other regions lag relatively behind. Now, the industrial belt around the Great Lakes region is your opportunity. We must take advantage of local water energy and mineral resources to catch up with the national average."
In the early years, it was very simple to immigrate to the Great Lakes region. After all, the land here is fertile and can cultivate a large population, but now there are problems, that is, the population is relatively dense, but the industry is developing relatively slowly, which makes the Great Lakes region a depression in the East African economy, especially in terms of per capita income level and industrial capacity.
This means that if East Africa wants to go from a primary industrial power to a veritable industrial power, it must solve the development problem of the Great Lakes region. After the economy and industry in the Great Lakes region are completely developed, the gap between East Africa and other industrial powers in the world will basically no longer exist.
(This chapter ends)