African Entrepreneurship Record-Chapter 886 - 190: Agricultural Structure Adjustment

Of course, saying that West Africa can't find indigenous people to plant cotton would certainly be inaccurate, as East Africa annually sends a large number of indigenous Black people to the West African region. A significant portion of these locals have been "educated" in East Africa for several years, but what happens to these East Africans flowing into West Africa is left to fate.

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First Town.

"Your Royal Highness, the preliminary adjustments for this round of agricultural production structure have been determined. The new development agricultural lands in East Africa will mainly be concentrated in the central area, Mozambique, and Angola. Among these, Mozambique and Angola will be new grain crop planting areas," Gorwystan, the Minister of Agriculture, reported to Ernst.

This round, East Africa will continue to adjust the agricultural production structure, with Mozambique and Angola becoming new bases for grain agriculture while many regions in the eastern area will transition from grain farming to economic crop cultivation.

Ernst said, "In the future, East Africa's agriculture should form five major regions, including the east, middle, west, and south, to ensure national food security. However, currently, our nation must prioritize commodity agriculture development, vigorously developing economic crop cultivation, promoting mechanization and the fertilizer industry, and enhancing East Africa's agricultural economy's competitiveness."

As of now, the major income of East African countries still predominantly comes from agriculture, accounting for more than seventy-five percent of national taxation. Although there has been a decline, agriculture remains the mainstay of the East African economy, compelling the East African government to focus on this fundamental aspect.

Moreover, the decline in agriculture's share in tax revenue does not mean a decrease in quantity; instead, it has significantly increased.

With the large-scale promotion of economic crop cultivation and adjustments in agricultural structure, East Africa's agricultural profitability has actually improved.

It has formed a core competitive edge with East Africa's advantageous crop group including rubber, cotton, hemp, tea, tobacco, spices, fruits, and vegetables, surpassing other regions in the world in tropical economic crop cultivation and becoming the undisputed largest tropical economic crop-growing country globally.

Of course, the current major agricultural structure adjustments in East Africa focus on the east, because the eastern agricultural sector was established early and is large in scale, and its production mechanisms no longer meet East Africa's agricultural development trends.

Instead, the tropical economic crop cultivation industry in the Somali region has become the new benchmark for East Africa's agricultural economy development. This essentially means that after solving the basic food and clothing issue, the East African government is investing more energy into East Africa's agricultural income. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Of course, this does not mean East Africa is neglecting grain crop cultivation; rather, it is paying even more attention to it. In the new cycle of agricultural structure adjustments, East Africa's grain crop cultivation policy primarily focuses on expansion.

Firstly, it should be clarified that East Africa's demand for grain crop farming is steadily increasing because East Africa's population is currently in a high-speed growth phase, and the population growth rate is proportional to East Africa's basic farmland development.

Therefore, based on the original areas for grain crop cultivation, East Africa will fully develop the southern land, with the southern Mozambique plain as the new development land, forming new grain agricultural bases, and establishing a new high-quality grain agriculture production area of over ten million hectares.

Previously, East Africa has already formed four major grain agricultural areas: the Coastal Plain Region, the East African Plateau, the Great Lakes Region, and the Central Plateau Region.

Among them, the East African Plateau and the Great Lakes Region are considered one, though they are divided into rice and wheat planting areas based on rainfall.

The Central Plateau Region still holds substantial potential, currently being developed primarily in the Matabele Province, while areas like the Hohenzollern Province and Swabia Province still have relatively high idle land rates.

The Hohenzollern Province is equivalent to Zambia's western regions in a previous life, with cultivable land exceeding forty percent of the national territory. However, East African development only reaches about eight percent; if not for the rise of a batch of cities, the development rate would be even lower, and the Swabia Province is in a similar situation.

Industrially speaking, these two regions actually have a higher industrial output than agriculture. It's important to note that even in East Africa's largest industrial scale, the agricultural to industry ratio in Matabele Province doesn't have as significant a gap as in these two provinces, so central development remains a long process, requiring time to reach the level of the eastern regions.

"Last year, the agricultural economic output in the Somali region was the most outstanding among East African regions, with most agricultural products achieving export, accounting for over eighty percent of the Somali region's total agricultural output, becoming an important agricultural production base for the European market, generating substantial economic benefits."

"Currently, we plan to replicate the advanced experiences of development in the Somali and northern industrial belt regions in East Africa's eastern coastal area, particularly in two naturally advantageous districts: the New Württemberg Province in northern Mozambique and others. Utilizing ports, railways, and highways to achieve new breakthroughs in exporting agricultural products and raw materials to Central and Eastern Europe."

After all, in the absence of industrial foundations and major national industrial investments, only extensive development of economic crop cultivation occurred in the Somali and East African Northwest, yet the results were quite positive.

Leveraging the advantage of proximity to the main Eurasian maritime routes, exports to the Eurasian continent hit new highs annually, spurring rapid regional economic development.

"The Somali region shows significant advantages, while the northern industrial area has Mombasa as the driving force. However, compared to the northern industry, the Somali region is currently restricted in its development due to the lack of railways, so the three provinces in the Somali region have reflected to us the issue of railway construction, suggesting two lateral railway constructions to alleviate the pressure of agricultural product exports along the Juba and Shebelle Rivers."

The Somali region actually involves four provinces: the Northern Province, Juba Province, both completely belonging to the Somali region, and parts of Turkana Province and Eastern Province are also located in the Somali region.

However, the capital of Eastern Province is Mombasa, which has a strong local driving capacity. Additionally, the Eastern Province is distributed in a bloc form, and through Mombasa's radial roads, the local demand for railways is not high.

Meanwhile, the Turkana Province, Juba Province, and Northern Province are three large provinces in East Africa. Juba Province and Northern Province are distributed narrowly along the Juba and Shebelle Rivers, and due to the rivers' poor navigation capabilities and high transportation demand, there is strong emphasis on railways.

The Turkana Province actually has a north-south railway, but it is located in the province's western part, while the eastern Somali region is inland Somali, where development is inconvenient without railway support.

Therefore, the three provinces share common interests regarding railway needs. For Turkana Province, the opening of railways in both the Northern or Juba Province would benefit the development of its eastern region.

Regarding this request, Ernst replied, "Have them communicate with the railway department. Previously, the Ministry of Railways indeed had plans for Somali railways, but it belonged to part of the eastern coastal railway, which runs north-south, and doesn't have a significant impact on the economies of the two provinces."

Currently, the Northern Province and Juba Province both rely on export-oriented agriculture as key industries, so the connection with southern areas' railways doesn't have as urgent a need as building intra-province riverside railways.

In Ernst's view, these two east-west riverside railways are indeed more important for the two provinces. So, in principle, he supports the railway construction in both places, but it depends on whether the East African railway system can allocate resources.

These are minor issues, and although the railway department already has systematic plans, some railway lines can be temporarily shelved, such as the Whale Bay Port railway, which can certainly be postponed until after the Somali railways, as Whale Bay Port's economic output is not even close to the Somali region's fragment.