African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1406 Food Security
As March approaches, the North Great Lakes Province in East Africa enters the rainy season. Heavy rains suddenly fall, nourishing the lush rice seedlings in the rice fields. The neat fields, rivers, ponds and lakes are interspersed, showing a vibrant life.

The security guard held a black umbrella and carefully looked after the emperor, while Ernst, wearing a raincoat, checked the current agricultural development in the Great Lakes region.

The rain was quite heavy at this time, so even with an umbrella held above my head, a lot of rain still splashed onto the hood of the raincoat and then flowed down the brim.

The officials of the Northern Great Lakes Province were also excited to introduce the current agricultural situation in the Northern Great Lakes Province to His Majesty the Emperor.

Manfred, a senior official like Ernst, was wearing a black raincoat and standing on a tractor-trail compacted with gravel, sand and soil beside a canal at the edge of a field.

Manfred braved the wind and rain and spoke to Ernst in a calm and loud voice, "Your Majesty, the time of the rain this year is similar to the prediction of our provincial meteorological department. So, if it goes as expected, this year should be another bumper year."

Ernst nodded and said, "The agricultural development of the Great Lakes region directly determines the agricultural development of the entire country. Good weather and good harvests are naturally the best. The food of the entire Great Lakes region is the iron rice bowl of the people of the empire."

In fact, the climate of the Great Lakes region is one of the most stable among the major agricultural areas in East Africa. There are two rainy seasons throughout the year, and precipitation is relatively evenly distributed. And because it is close to the Congo Basin, it is impossible for there to be no rain even in the dry season.

Of course, this is the overall situation in most areas of the Northern Great Lakes Province. If it is the northeastern edge of the province, the rainfall situation is not so optimistic.

However, the Great Lakes region is not a place where you have to rely on the weather for your crops. There are many rivers and lakes here, and the water resources are very abundant. Even if there is a drought, there will be no shortage of water.

Manfred's next words also proved this point. He said proudly: "In order to secure this iron rice bowl for the people of the whole country, our province has made a lot of efforts over the years."

"By 1920, the cultivated land area in our province reached more than million mu, and in recent years, with the diversion of water for irrigation and land management, the cultivated land area has continued to increase. By the end of the Fifth Five-Year Plan, it is certain that the cultivated land area in Beidahu Province will exceed million mu."

"Most of the land is irrigated and water-fed. The rice planting area and output have ranked first in the country for many years. The output of important food crops such as wheat, corn, and soybeans also ranks among the top in the country."

Nearly 100 million mu of arable land accounts for almost 30% of the area of ​​the Northern Great Lakes Province. This shows that there is still a lot of room for development in agriculture in the Northern Great Lakes Province.

In fact, there are three provinces surrounding the Great Lakes region, and the total amount of arable land around the Great Lakes is close to 400 million mu.

Therefore, Ernst said happily: "Agriculture in the Great Lakes region, especially grain cultivation, accounts for nearly a quarter of the country's total grain output. This is the cornerstone of the empire's development and cannot be shaken."

"As an important agricultural production base in the Great Lakes region, Northern Great Lakes Province also has a heavy task, especially the issue of how to coordinate local ecology and agricultural development."

"For example, wetland protection, soil and water conservation, integrated 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 and taking into account the harmonious coexistence of man and nature."

East Africa is a country with overproduction in agriculture. With more than 2 billion mu of arable land, the grain output is more than enough to sustain both production and life in East Africa, with a population of less than 200 million.

Moreover, this also needs to take into account the impact of factors such as the improvement of agricultural technology, the increase in pesticide and fertilizer production, the improvement in the quality of agricultural personnel, etc. on agricultural yield per mu. Therefore, there is no doubt that even if East Africa no longer expands the cultivated land area, grain production will continue to increase due to other factors.

Ernst said: "Since the last century, international food prices and market demand have remained low, and although the empire's population has grown, it has maintained a dynamic balance with current food production."

"Therefore, continuing to blindly expand the scale of cultivated land is no longer in line with my country's basic national conditions. Under this premise, developing ecological agriculture and high-quality agriculture is the way out for East African agriculture in the future."

The reason why ecological issues are mentioned is that after decades of development, relevant problems have indeed emerged in many places in East Africa, especially in the areas where grasslands and deserts meet, because vegetation destruction has caused the expansion of desert area.

After all, East Africa as a whole is a relatively arid country. There is the Somali Desert in the northeast, the Namib Desert and the Kalahari Desert in the southwest, and the Sahara Desert in the north. And these are just deserts; there are also sandy lands, arid grasslands and other places to be counted.

In addition, the development of the rainforest border has also encountered problems. Large-scale deforestation has caused soil erosion in forest areas such as the Congo rainforest, which in turn has led to problems such as increased sand content in rivers such as the Congo River, Zambezi River, and Nile River.

In short, the ecology in many areas of East Africa is relatively fragile.

This is actually understandable. East Africa is no longer the colony with a population of only a few million people many years ago. It is now a super populous country with a population approaching 200 million. Currently, the only countries with a population larger than East Africa are the Far Eastern Empire and India.

Such a large population will naturally have a significant impact on the ecology, especially for East Africa, where the ecology is relatively fragile.

After all, even in the United States, a "chosen land" with a population that has just exceeded 100 million, the ecology of the country is rapidly disintegrating, and large-scale sandstorms and vegetation destruction are becoming increasingly prominent.

Therefore, this problem will only be more serious in East Africa, which has a larger population, and this also involves the destructive development in East Africa over the past few decades.

Although East Africa has a huge land area, which means that its 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 far as East Africa is concerned, in fact, the vast majority of the population lives in the habitable zone in the middle, which is the so-called monsoon forest zone in East Africa, which can be vaguely understood as the transition zone between grassland and rainforest. The area of ​​this region is actually only four million square kilometers, which accounts for less than one-third of the total area of ​​East Africa.

This is actually equivalent to the habitable area of ​​the Far Eastern Empire, which is approximately between four and five million square kilometers.

Of course, the population of the Far East Empire is more than twice that of East Africa, and the backward industrial level makes the environmental degradation of the Far East Empire far greater than that of East Africa. The fuel use problem alone has destroyed many forests in the Far East Empire. However, under the promotion of East Africa's energy policy in recent years, the residents of East Africa can at least use clean energy such as coal, natural gas, and electricity. Compared with direct burning of firewood, coal is indeed a kind of clean energy.

However, in this era, East Africa's environmental problems obviously cannot be compared with the Far Eastern Empire or India. After all, the levels of development are different and the issues to be considered are also different. East Africa is an industrial country, so it would be more meaningful to compare it with European and American countries.

As for European and American countries, the habitable land of the United States is about 6 million square kilometers, but you have to know that the area of ​​the United States mainland is only more than 7 million square kilometers.

Europe is even more blessed by God. In terms of land quality, topography, water resources and other natural conditions, Europe is now the most livable place in the world.

Of course, livability is a concept that has no unified standard. As for the so-called livable land area in East Africa, there is a lot of water mixed in.

However, compared with the land area of ​​East Africa, it is quite difficult to piece together such a large habitable area. At least compared with Russia, the overall natural conditions in East Africa are much better.

Senior official Manfred replied: "Your Majesty is talking about what our province has been doing in recent years. Although the Northern Great Lakes Province is one of the most important food production bases in the country's positioning, we have also made great efforts in ecology and industry."

"Take the scale of cultivated land in our province, for example. Although it ranks among the highest in the country, this is the result of our self-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 cultivated land, we also learn from past experiences and lessons and attach importance to the opinions of professionals."

"If this were not the case, the amount of arable land in our province would have already exceeded 100 million mu, and even reaching 150 million mu would not be a big problem."

Manfred was not exaggerating. In fact, if the land development model of the Far Eastern Empire was really followed, the Northern Lakes Province would be able to develop more than 200 million acres of arable land.

Of course, food cannot be sold at a high price nowadays, and the East African central government will not put all its eggs in one basket for food security reasons. Even if the Northern Great Lakes Province wants to expand its arable land area in this way, it needs the consent of the East African government.

The so-called food security is not only aimed at foreign countries, but also includes arrangements within East Africa. For example, the five major food production bases in East Africa are the Great Lakes region, the eastern plateau agricultural region (non-Great Lakes region of the East African Plateau), the middle and lower reaches of the Zambezi River agricultural region, the southern agricultural region and the western agricultural region.

In addition to these five major grain-producing areas, there are also some small grain-producing areas. It can be said that there are large-scale grain-producing areas in the east, west, south, north and center of East Africa.

After all, it is obviously risky for a country's food to be completely concentrated in one place. Today, the Great Lakes region's food production accounts for a quarter of East Africa's total, and based on the region's development potential, it is fully capable of increasing 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. Controlling nearly half of the grain output would help the central government control the entire country through grain. The problem is that Rhine City is not in the Great Lakes region, so the Great Lakes region's share of grain production cannot exceed 50% of the country's total.

Moreover, there is no need for East Africa to concentrate its arable land in the Great Lakes region. Although the Great Lakes region has great potential for agricultural development and the best natural conditions in East Africa, the specific conditions in other places are actually not bad.

As for food production in the Great Lakes region, the acceptable range for East African governments is that it accounts for no more than one-third of the country's total food production.

One important reason for this is that East Africa is now a country with a surplus of food production, and food production in other regions is sufficient to maintain basic needs in the region. In this case, it is of little significance for the Great Lakes region to produce more food.

Moreover, at this stage, East Africa intends to transfer part of its food production capacity to the Great Lakes region, allowing it to take on the task of food security in some relatively ecologically fragile areas.

This is also the reason why the cultivated land area in the Great Lakes region is still expanding. However, this expansion is not disorderly and is always 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 interference and completely follows market rules, with its superior natural conditions, it may "sweep away" many grain-producing areas in East Africa.

Just like the international food market, if a country allows food from East Africa and the United States to freely enter its market, that country's agricultural system will basically be on the verge of collapse.

If the local agricultural system is destroyed, its lifeline will be controlled by East Africa or the United States.

In fact, this was the situation in Africa in the past. The agriculture of many African countries was completely unable to develop independently. Instead, they were dependent on the secondary agricultural system of the colonial power. They could only grow cash crops and had no control over their own pricing. Once they disobeyed the colonial power, they might fall into a food crisis under the sanctions of the colonial power.

The food crisis is a very terrifying thing. Once people don’t have enough to eat, other problems will follow, and the regime will be close to collapse.

Therefore, countries that were able to achieve agricultural self-sufficiency in the past had actually accomplished a remarkable achievement. In the past, only a few countries on the African continent, such as Tanzania, South Africa, and Zambia, were able to achieve this.

In short, the importance of food security is self-evident, so it is impossible for East African governments to allow agriculture in the Great Lakes region to expand disorderly.

Ernst emphasized again: "Agriculture is the foundation of the Great Lakes region, but we must do what we can, especially in today's sluggish international market."

"Moreover, the industry in the Great Lakes region has also been developing rapidly in recent years. The Great Lakes region is one of the most densely populated areas, but its industrial development lagged behind other regions in the past. Now the industrial belt around the Great Lakes region is your opportunity. You must make good use of the local hydropower and mineral resources and catch up with the national average as soon as possible."

In the early years, it was very easy for East Africans to immigrate to the Great Lakes region. After all, the land here is fertile and can support a large population. However, a problem has now arisen. That is, the population is relatively dense, but industrial development is relatively slow. This has made the Great Lakes region a low point in the East African economy, especially in terms of per capita income levels and industrial production capacity.

This means that if East Africa wants to transform from a primary industrial power to a true industrial power, it must solve the development problems of the Great Lakes region. Once the economy and industry of the Great Lakes region are fully developed, the gap between East Africa and other industrial powers in the world will basically no longer exist.

(End of this chapter)