African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1042: Industry Feeds Back Agriculture
Agriculture in East Africa has developed slowly, and has only now truly closed the gap with European and American countries. Although the output of pesticides and fertilizers is not as high as that of Germany, there is not much difference in quantity compared with other countries. Of course, the situation is different when it comes to per capita output.

After all, the national conditions of Germany and East African countries are different. East Africa and Tsarist Russia, the United States have large land areas and abundant available land resources. Britain and France have vast overseas colonies that can share the pressure of local agricultural development.

Under such circumstances, Germany's current progress in agricultural technology can be said to be unique in the world. Take potato production as an example. At the beginning of German reunification, grain production was more than 17 million tons, and now it is more than 25 million tons. Potato production has increased from more than 20 million tons to more than 40 million tons, and beet production has also increased from more than 20 million tons to more than 30 million tons.

This is obviously due to Germany's concentrated outbreak in the fields of agricultural breeding, fertilizers, pesticides, and agricultural machinery. The country's ruling class is mainly composed of Junker nobles, who, as landlords themselves, attach great importance to the advancement of agricultural technology.

At present, judging from agricultural yield per mu alone, Germany ranks first in the world. Its yield per mu is much higher than that of France, where the land is more fertile, and is nearly twice that of the United States and East Africa, and more than twice that of Tsarist Russia.

Take potato production as an example. Germany's potato yield per hectare is about 150 quintals. Tsarist Russia ranks second with only more than 80 quintals, while France, the United States and East Africa are all around 70 quintals.

Of course, the weather in Tsarist Russia was indeed suitable for potato production, so it was able to surpass France, the United States and East Africa. However, Tsarist Russia was far behind other countries in terms of unit grain output. Even the wheat yield in East Africa was around ten quintals per hectare, while Russia only had six or seven quintals. The United States was over ten quintals, France was twice that of Russia, and Germany was more than three times that of Tsarist Russia.

Among these countries, East Africa's climate is the least suitable for wheat production, but it is still ahead of Russia due to its advances in agricultural technology. Wheat is no longer as important as rice in East African cereals, and East Africa's rice production will only be higher.

Among the above-mentioned countries, the average quality of Germany's land is only better than that of East Africa. France's natural agricultural conditions are the best in Western Europe, especially the land around Paris. Tsarist Russia has Ukraine, a major granary, not to mention the United States, which has a rich variety of climate types and high soil fertility.

Therefore, the fundamental reason why Germany, with its not-so-superior land, could crush other countries in the world in terms of grain yield per mu was that it possessed the most advanced agricultural technology in the world at that time.

This has a lot to do with Germany's industrial development. Take the important agricultural fertilizer potash salt for example. In the 1990s, Germany's potash salt production had reached more than millions of tons. At least 30% of Germany's grain planting costs are invested in grain planting.

This is especially true in the field of agricultural machinery. Although East Africa has a first-mover advantage in tractors, agricultural machinery is not limited to tractors. Germany is in a world leading position in threshers, seed drills, lawn mowers, steam plows, etc.

Even smaller farms in Germany are equipped with at least ten types of production machinery. Moreover, Germany is mainly composed of medium and large farms under the Junker nobles. It can be said that in this era, German agriculture is a benchmark for the world.

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Rhine City.

The East African governments have certainly taken major actions to mechanize agriculture, but due to constraints such as the country's arable land area and industrial strength, the pace of agricultural transfer is not particularly fast.

The Ministry of Agriculture introduced the current situation of agriculture in East Africa to Ernst. Minister of Agriculture Fingel said: "At present, my country's accumulation of agricultural machinery technology in the field of grain agriculture is on par with other countries, but it will take more effort to promote these agricultural machinery."

"Take wheat seed drills as an example. We imitated seed drills from Germany and other countries and achieved independent production of this type of machine, but our industrial capacity cannot compare with other industrial powers." "Take Germany for example. Germany's industry is stronger than ours, so its seed drill output is higher than ours, but Germany's cultivated land area is much smaller than ours. To put it simply, even if we produce the same number of seed drills as Germany, it is impossible to achieve nationwide popularization of seed drills. We must produce at least three times more wheat seed drills than Germany to achieve the same effect."

"Moreover, the proportion of wheat in our country's planting industry has declined, and rice ranks first in cereal planting. The rice transplanter developed by our country will be more difficult to roll out than the wheat planter."

"Of course, the government is currently working hard to promote the full mechanization of agriculture, but the establishment of relevant factories cannot be completed overnight. After all, Germany had a better foundation than us when it was first unified."

"However, we do have unparalleled advantages in tractors and cars over other countries, which has led to a rapid increase in the level of agricultural mechanization in our country. Apart from the UK, France, Germany and the US, the level of agricultural mechanization in East Africa is also relatively advanced in the world."

The role of tractors in promoting agriculture in East Africa is very significant. In the agricultural field, tractors can be said to be all-round players. Through various modifications, they can participate in almost most agricultural work. Agricultural activities such as plowing, sowing, and harvesting can all be completed with tractors as the carrier.

With a tractor as a carrier and suitable agricultural implements, it can do many jobs that special-purpose agricultural machinery can do. Therefore, although the comprehensive research and development capabilities of agricultural machinery in East Africa cannot be compared with those of other industrial powers for the time being, the utilization efficiency has been greatly improved, which is what the saying "good steel is used on the blade" means.

At the beginning of the 20th century, tractors in various countries were at the peak of the steam age. The annual output of steam tractors in the United States exceeded tens of thousands, and through the First Five-Year Plan, the annual output of internal combustion tractors in East Africa had reached units.

Due to various limitations, the efficiency of steam tractors is naturally not comparable to that of internal combustion tractors. Therefore, although East Africa does not seem to be as prosperous as other countries in the comprehensive research and development of agricultural machinery, in fact, because it has chosen the right track, it has rapidly narrowed the gap with other industrial countries.

Moreover, East Africa's advantages in the field of agricultural machinery research will grow over time. When other countries are still focusing on steam tractors, East Africa has begun to extend to other agricultural machinery with internal combustion engine tractors as the carrier. To give an example of non-agricultural machinery, the most typical example is that the production of armored vehicles in East Africa is mainly completed by tractor factories.

Ernst: "During the First and Second Five-Year Plans, industrial development was the country's focus, which was also a factor that restricted the speed of agricultural mechanization. After all, industry has greater profits, and the larger the industrial scale, the higher the government's revenue. In fact, it is not easy to increase the increment of my country's agriculture. No matter how hard we try, it is impossible to increase the per-acre yield too much. Even if more fertilizers and pesticides are used, it is impossible to make agriculture soar to the sky."

"Of course, agricultural mechanization is an inevitable trend in the future development of agriculture. Under this premise, the faster the industrial development, the faster the agricultural mechanization. The improvement of industrial capacity means that we can produce more and better agricultural machinery, thus realizing the industrial feedback to agriculture."

In other words, at the current stage of development in East Africa, although the fundamental status of agriculture will not change, it is impossible for agricultural development to exceed the speed of industrial development. Even if East Africa pays more attention to agriculture during the Second Five-Year Plan than during the First Five-Year Plan, it cannot invest too much energy in it.

As the industry develops well, agricultural mechanization is a natural result. In fact, East Africa's industry has already started to feed back to agriculture. However, due to the low level of industrialization in East Africa, the effect has not been seen very quickly.

Moreover, agricultural development does not rely solely on mechanization, but also depends on the progress of technologies such as pesticides and fertilizers. Although the chemical industry in East Africa has developed to a certain scale after the First Five-Year Plan period, if it is to have a real impact on agriculture, it depends on the degree of development of the chemical industry during the Second Five-Year Plan period.

(End of this chapter)