African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1049 Agricultural Crisis
Germany is one of the major importers of minerals and primary agricultural products from East Africa, among which East African cotton occupies an important position in the German textile industry.

At present, almost all raw materials for Germany's cotton textile industry are imported. Germany's cotton textile industry ranks first in Europe and fourth in the world. In the past, Germany's imported cotton mainly came from Britain and the United States. After the growth of the cotton planting industry in East Africa, East Africa has become Germany's largest source of cotton imports.

Germany's annual cotton imports were about one billion pounds, and the volume continued to grow until 1907. East Africa's current total cotton production is about billion pounds, of which nearly million pounds are exported to Germany each year. Together with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which exports nearly million pounds, and major cotton importing countries such as Tsarist Russia, East Africa's annual cotton exports are over one billion pounds, or about to tons. Central and Eastern European countries are East Africa's main markets.

Therefore, the European economic crisis will have a great impact on the export of primary agricultural products in East Africa. Of course, cotton cultivation in East Africa has obviously had a huge impact on the world cotton industry, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, which have been the most affected. Among them, the United Kingdom has a relatively large-scale cotton planting industry in India and Egypt, and has formed competition with East Africa.

Fortunately, the South African War broke out between East Africa and Britain long ago. The suppression of East Africa's cotton planting and textile industries was enough for Britain to find an excuse to go to war. After the South African War, East Africa did put tremendous pressure on traditional agricultural exporting countries in the agricultural field.

Especially the United Kingdom, the United States, or other tropical countries, East Africa has come from behind with its advantages in land area and population, and has caused a serious impact on the original international cash crop market, especially the tropical and subtropical cash crop market, in the field of cash crop cultivation.

This is the case with crops such as cotton, rubber, tea, coffee and some spice crops. In addition, during the First Five-Year Plan, agricultural technology, mechanization and pesticide and fertilizer production in East Africa improved, which further reduced the cost of agricultural production in East Africa. The impact was greatest on agricultural countries with less developed agricultural sectors such as Brazil and India.

At that time, Brazil was far from being able to compete with East Africa in terms of land area or population size, and the two countries' agriculture was highly homogeneous. East Africa was closer to the Eurasian market than Brazil, so Brazil could be said to be the first victim of the rise of East African agriculture.

India is relatively better. Although its land area is smaller, India has a large proportion of cultivated land and a population of 300 million. Its labor cost is even lower than that of the slave state in East Africa. In addition, with the support of Britain, India's agricultural advantages are still relatively large. However, the highly developed agriculture in East Africa also means that Britain's exploitation of India will be further intensified.

Apart from these two countries, although other countries have a certain degree of competition with East African agriculture, they are relatively less affected due to different latitudes and climates.

Ernst told the Ministry of Agriculture: "my country's agriculture is facing a relatively large impact from the global economic crisis. International agricultural product prices have remained low for a long time, and now we are facing the impact of the sluggish international market. This is not good news for my country's agricultural development."

The official from the Ministry of Agriculture said: "Your Highness, we don't have a very good solution for this. The only thing we can do is to absorb the excess agricultural production capacity through large-scale industrial production in our country, and further distribute agricultural products to optimize the quality of life of our people to offset the overproduction in the agricultural sector."

In fact, the world's demand for agricultural products is very strong. After all, the per capita consumption of agricultural products in various countries in the world in the early 20th century was far from comparable to that in later generations, and people in many areas of the world still lived a very difficult life in the early 20th century.

For example, the Far Eastern Empire has been affected by various natural disasters all year round. Coupled with the turbulent internal situation in the Far Eastern Empire, famine is very widespread. Especially in 1906, when the East African -Year Plan was vigorously carried out, a severe drought broke out in the north of the Far Eastern Empire, and the worst-hit area was the Huaihai Economic Zone.

In other parts of the world, except for industrial countries or some colonies, people basically live below the poverty line, and this kind of poverty means they may not have enough food to eat at any time. Tsarist Russia is a typical example. After the Russo-Japanese War, in order to repay its debts and restore its naval construction, it would naturally reap wealth from the lower classes again. However, Russia is just an agricultural country, not even a semi-industrial country. Adding more taxes will further aggravate the suffering of the lower-class people. It is no wonder that it has become the weakest link of imperialism.

East Africa is certainly not much better, but it only needs to ensure that the quality of life of its people is higher than the world average. As a slave state, East Africa does not need to put too much pressure on its people.

Ernst said: "The agricultural sector is facing great difficulties, but the crisis should not last too long. The government must withstand the pressure and maintain current agricultural production. With the advancement of industrialization, agricultural development will also move towards mechanization in the future, and the proportion of agricultural population will also drop significantly. When my country's industrialization reaches a certain level, the impact on the agricultural sector will become smaller and smaller."

The industrialization of East Africa is very different from that of the Soviet Union, mainly because it is more stable. This means that the intensity of exploitation of agriculture in East Africa is far from that of the Soviet Union. Of course, there are still obvious differences between the agricultural population and the industrial population.

If this difference had not been artificially created, East Africa's industrialization would not have been able to proceed so smoothly. After all, if their survival was not threatened, the agricultural population would not actively move to industry.

The second main reason is that the funds for East Africa's industrialization do not need to be borne entirely by agriculture. This is the advantage of a colonial country. A large part of the wealth of East African countries comes from the plunder of black people, and the wealth has been firmly in the hands of the country since the early days of the founding of the country.

The situation in the Soviet Union was completely different from that in East Africa. In order to raise funds for its initial development, the Soviet Union even had to sell antiques. After all, the coup caused a large number of wealthy former Russian upper classes to flee overseas, and the early Soviet regime did not control the entire country, which meant that the upper class, which controlled most of Russia's wealth, had ample time to flee. At the same time, the former ruling class of society wantonly destroyed factories and other infrastructure in the war confrontation with the Soviet regime, further destroying Russia's original industry.

This was equivalent to the original social wealth of Russia being directly looted, and the Soviet Union was only able to intercept a small part of it. Therefore, the Soviet Union's industrialization, and even the Far Eastern Empire's initial industrialization later, faced serious financial difficulties. The Far Eastern Empire was even worse off than the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's industrialization stage happened to encounter the opportunity of the great crisis of the capitalist world, while the Far Eastern Empire not only did not have this opportunity but also faced an even more serious blockade.

In comparison, East Africa is undoubtedly much luckier. At least the international environment is much better. Moreover, as a slave state, East Africa can avoid many problems by exploiting the indigenous people. As for the plight of black people, that is not within the consideration of the East African government.

"Ensuring the export of agricultural products is an important task in the coming period. At the same time, our country's industrial absorption of agriculture is also increasing significantly. The scope of this agricultural crisis cannot be compared with the agricultural crisis in 1873, so we don't need to worry too much." Ernst said.

During the agricultural crisis in 1873, East Africa's agriculture was still dominated by food crops, but by 1907, East African agricultural planting had shifted to cash crops. At the same time, due to the suppression of agriculture in other tropical countries in the 1907s, East African agriculture's ability to withstand pressure was still very strong. Moreover, the economic crisis in 1873 was far less severe than the economic crisis in . Ernst had never heard of this economic crisis in his previous life, so the market recovery should be relatively fast.

(End of this chapter)