African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1409: Sadindida Plain
In East Africa's five-year plan, the focus of agriculture is on the use of water resources and land management, because these two are large-scale agricultural projects covering the whole country, and basically every place has related needs.

Therefore, it must be noted that in areas such as the Great Lakes region where water resources are very abundant, the focus of water-saving agriculture is different. At the same time, in the rice-growing areas of the Great Lakes region, water resource management and land management are closely linked.

The Great Lakes region pays more attention to drainage work, which is reflected in the fact that agricultural irrigation tools have become more complex and detailed, so as to achieve the goal of managing water resources within the limits and improve utilization efficiency. At the same time, a developed ditch network is built to guide water to where it should go.

As for the direction of water flow in the Great Lakes region, in addition to flowing downstream along the Nile River, the East African government also has a key engineering project in the Northern Great Lakes Province. Of course, this water conservancy project actually involves two provinces, namely the Northern Great Lakes Province and Turkana Province, but overall Turkana Province is the beneficiary.

Ernst asked: "Now, how is the water diversion project in your province, that is, the western water diversion project from the Great Lakes to the Sadindida Plain?"

The Sadindida Plain is the plain area between the East African Plateau and the Ethiopian Plateau. Lake Turkana is located on this plain, and to its east is the Benadir Plain.

Of course, these plains are generally not very well-known. When people divide these areas, they prefer to judge them based on desert landforms. For example, the Benadir Plain is generally called the Somali Desert or the Northeast Desert by East Africans.

The climate conditions in the Sadindida Plain are basically the same as those in Somalia, so in order to strengthen the development and utilization of the local area, East Africa has three important water diversion projects.

Of course, it can also be seen as two. The project to divert water from the East African Plateau into the Sadindida Plain is divided into the east line and the west line, so it can be seen as two independent water diversion projects.

The last one is to divert water from the Ethiopian Plateau into the Sadindida Plain, which can also be called the Sadindida Plain Water Diversion North Line Project.

The purpose of these three water diversion projects is to solve the agricultural, production and domestic water problems in the Sadindida Plain, and the beneficiaries are all Turkana Province.

Whether it is the East African Plateau or the Ethiopian Plateau, they both had a name in their previous lives, that is, "African Water Tower".

There is no need to say much about the East African Plateau. It has the richest fresh water reserves in the whole of Africa, giving birth to the famous East African Plateau lakes.

The Ethiopian Plateau also has abundant rainfall and is the source of water for important East African rivers such as the Nile River, Juba River, Shabelle River, as well as Lake Turkana, the fourth largest lake in East Africa. There is also a large lake, Lake Tana, on the Ethiopian Plateau within the Abyssinian Empire.

Therefore, making good use of the water resources of the East African Plateau and the Ethiopian Plateau can further expand the habitable areas in East Africa and alleviate the problem of regional water resource tension.

The western line project involving the Northern Great Lakes Province is to divert part of the Nile River water into the desert area southwest of Lake Turkana.

At present, the East African government's main development project for the Sadindida Plain Water Diversion Project, in addition to meeting the industrial and domestic water needs of Turkana Province, is more to expand the country's cotton-growing area and build it into an important cotton production base in East Africa.

Therefore, when it comes to the progress of the construction of this project, Manfred said: "Your Majesty, regarding the Sadindida Plain Water Diversion West Line Project, our province has basically completed the progress. However, the progress in Turkana Province is relatively slow. It is expected to take two years for the entire line to be completed."

The reason for this result is actually that the construction capacity of Turkana Province is much worse than that of Northern Great Lakes Province. Although Northern Great Lakes Province is an agricultural province, its industrial scale is still relatively considerable. After all, the population size is there, and where there is a population, there is corresponding market demand.

What's more, agricultural provinces themselves have more experience in water conservancy construction, so it is reasonable that the Northern Lake Province can complete the work progress within the province ahead of schedule.

Ernst was quite satisfied with the explanation given by Manfred. He said, "In the northern region, due to population, economy and industrial capacity, the development of engineering projects is more difficult than in other regions. Therefore, as an important province close to the north, your province should play a leading role and cooperate with the national guidelines and policies. You should not be narrow-minded."

The reason why Ernst emphasized this is that the Sadindida Plain Water Diversion Project, a large-scale water conservancy project, actually has a very limited effect on the Northern Great Lakes Province.

In the Sadindida Plain Water Diversion Project, except for the northern line project which was entirely undertaken by Turkana Province itself, in the eastern and western lines, the Province of Prussia (western Kenya) and the Northern Great Lakes Province were the ones who paid more but did not gain much.

It would undoubtedly be more difficult to coordinate such a thankless project in the relatively autonomous regions of Europe and the United States.

Ernst went on to say, "Only when the northern economy develops can the upper limit of the Great Lakes region be increased accordingly. After all, the Great Lakes region is located inland, and the surrounding areas are equivalent to your economic hinterland. So although you may seem to be at a disadvantage now, it is actually adding fuel to your future development."

Manfred nodded in agreement with what the Emperor said. He said, "We in the Northern Great Lakes Province also understand this. As a province in the Great Lakes region, we are relatively poor in the country, especially in terms of being far away from the ocean."

“Therefore, inland and surrounding trade is the only way out for the Great Lakes region, and we should make up for the shortcomings of our non-coastal provinces as much as possible. The main learning goal of our province is to become an important inland trade, transportation, and exchange node like the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Germany.”

Although both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany have access to the sea, in terms of the economic distribution of the two countries, they belong to the inland regions with relatively developed economies. One of the important reasons why they were able to do this is that the economic levels of the countries surrounding Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were not bad.

Therefore, only when the regional environment is good can the upper limit of economic development of the Northern Great Lakes Province be further improved to become a strong economic province in East Africa.

Ernst nodded and said, "The Sadindida Plain Water Diversion Project may seem like you're at a disadvantage, but in the long run, it will also be of great significance to you."

"Take the large amount of cotton and other crops that will be planted along the water diversion project. There is no doubt that the processing of these basic agricultural products will inevitably feed back to the textile industry and other industries in the Northern Great Lakes Province, further reducing the cost of raw materials for the development of your textile industry and providing better quality raw materials."

"In this way, Turkana Province will be able to earn income by growing more crops, and you will also be able to obtain more raw materials and markets." As for Turkana Province, it is impossible for it to develop large-scale industry itself, so if agriculture in Turkana Province is developed, the Northern Great Lakes Province will eventually become a beneficiary.

There are many reasons why Turkana Province will not develop industry on a large scale. For example, the climate in the Sadindida Plain area of ​​Turkana Province is inherently insufficient. If a factory is built here, additional cooling facilities must be built. If the factory is placed in the nearby Great Lakes area, even fans do not need to be installed.

After all, the annual average temperature in the Great Lakes region is only in the early 20s, and workers will not be affected too much at this temperature, while the temperature in the Sadindida Plain may reach over 30 degrees or even over 40 degrees. After all, a large part of the Sadindida Plain is desert and semi-arid grassland.

In addition, the Sadindida Plain even has to import water from outside, and industrial development itself requires a large amount of water. In contrast, the Great Lakes region has sufficient water resources and can export them.

Of course, the more important point is that if industry is deployed in the Great Lakes region, the industrial wastewater will eventually be discharged to Egypt through the Nile River. However, the Sadindida Plain in Turkana Province has no outward rivers. If industry is built there, it will eventually pollute East Africa’s own land, and because of the terrain, these pollutions will be highly concentrated.

The most typical example is Lake Turkana. Its upper reaches are the Omo River, which is an inland river. The Omo River originates in the southern part of the Ethiopian Plateau. After entering the Sadindida Plain, it finally flows into Lake Turkana, rather than the ocean.

So, theoretically, Lake Turkana can be regarded as the "Lop Nur" of East Africa, and the Omo River can be regarded as the "Tarim River".

However, the Sadindida Plain is not the Tarim Basin. Its east is connected to the Benadir Plain, which has a lower average altitude. However, due to the desert and arid climate, even if the terrain is not hindered, no natural river channel has developed to flow into the Indian Ocean.

This is somewhat similar. In the Nile River Province of East Africa, at the intersection of the Nile River Basin and the Sudan region of Egypt, the water volume in the upper reaches of the Nile River was originally good, but a large part of this river water evaporated in East Africa, and a large part of it was swallowed up by the desert to replenish groundwater.

This is why the Blue Nile, which originates from the Abyssinian Empire, is so important to Egypt.

The Omo River's apparent volume of water, as well as the low-lying terrain and dry, hot climate downstream, are not sufficient to support its development into a large river and its eventual flow into the Indian Ocean.

The Sadindida Plain water diversion project in East Africa will obviously also suffer some water loss along the way. However, the main purpose of these water diversion projects is to develop agriculture and animal husbandry. At the end of the project, there will be basically no water left, forming an inland lake similar to Lake Turkana.

Of course, the East African government’s intention goes beyond this. In addition to economic benefits, these water diversion projects also have the function of transforming the regional ecology.

The biggest victim of this project is actually Egypt, because a large part of the water for the Sadindida Plain Water Diversion Project comes from the Great Lakes region of the East African Plateau, and the Nile River is downstream of the Great Lakes region. East Africa will divert this river water to Turkana Province, which means that the amount of Nile River water flowing into Egypt will become less.

However, Ernst is very happy to see the reduction of water volume in the Nile River in Egypt.

After all, you have to know that the current Egypt, including the Sudan region, had a total population of nearly 150 million in the previous life, which is a very scary number.

Of course, the more important reason is that Egypt is a typical Arab country, and Ernst does not want to be neighbors with more than 100 million Arabs, as this will easily lead to the "greening" of northern East Africa.

After all, Egypt is to East Africa what Mexico is to the United States. However, the good news is that the natural barrier between Egypt and East Africa is worse than the border between the United States and Mexico.

In addition, Egyptians can also go to Europe to make a living, and in the past, "remittances" were an important item in Egypt's national fiscal revenue.

This group that creates "remittances" can actually be seen as migrant workers in the Far Eastern Empire, except that the Egyptians have to go abroad to work, and their destination is developed countries in Europe or the oil-rich countries in the Middle East.

Compared with Egypt, East Africa is undoubtedly also a "developed" country, and the two countries are land neighbors. Therefore, Ernst is worried that Egyptians will learn from Latin Americans and smuggle into East Africa on a large scale in the future. This worry is not unreasonable.

You have to know that East Africa is such a huge country, but its current population is less than 200 million, and it may only remain at a few hundred million in the future. So facing Egypt, this "poor" neighbor, which has many unacceptable "bad habits", at least Ernst cannot accept it psychologically.

Therefore, reducing Egypt's population carrying capacity is a very good way in Ernst's view. Egypt's population growth model in the past can be said to be too exaggerated. There are two main reasons for this population growth: one is religion and the other is the big cake policy.

The former allows Egyptians to grow unbridled and barbaric in their thinking, which is the norm in many Arab countries. The latter is a government guarantee, and the cheap pie gives Egyptians confidence to live.

However, looking back at the early 20th century, the populations of those small countries along the Persian Gulf, Qatar, the Pirate Coast, and Bahrain, could not expand before the discovery of oil because the climate was too harsh.

East Africa intercepting more Nile water will obviously make Egypt's survival situation worse in the future. However, this is obviously not enough. Ernst has a more vicious plan, which is to help the Abyssinian Empire build a dam on the Blue Nile in advance.

The Abyssinian Empire is a Christian country after all, and in recent years it has been rapidly becoming East African in culture, so the cultural differences between it and East Africa are getting smaller and smaller. Therefore, compared with countries like Egypt that are "difficult to change", Ernst is not worried about the future population growth of the Abyssinian Empire.

Of course, being difficult to change does not mean being impossible to change. It’s just that the imperialist countries like East Africa, Europe and the United States basically cannot do this. However, if the Labour Party does it, it may have a miraculous effect.

If Egypt can become a red country like Russia, then perhaps the population growth rate can be reduced in the future. The Russian-style Labor Party is very good at dealing with religion, coupled with large-scale popularization of education and development of industry. Therefore, based on past situations, the fertility rate in Labor Party countries is generally not high.

(End of this chapter)