African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 80 Agriculture
With the vigorous development of the "purge" movement, a large amount of land has been vacated. With the increase of immigrants in the future, it is bound to be fully developed.

The current agricultural system in the East African colonies is still relatively chaotic, because the population of the colonies is too scattered, and the cultivation of crops is also very different.

The staple food alone includes wheat, rice, and corn. Recently, the East African colonies are still trying to introduce millet planting in Kenya. This is what Ernst emphasized. After all, the climate in Kenya is drier, especially as it goes north, and millet is a very drought-tolerant crop. .

In the previous life, East Africa was an important production area of ​​millet. This place is very suitable for millet cultivation. After all, East Africa is a tropical grassland climate, which is most suitable for growing "grass", and millet came after the domestication of dogtail grass.

These are food crops, and economic crops are even more confusing. The East African colony is located in the tropics, and basically all tropical plants can be grown, sisal, coffee, rubber, cocoa, various vegetables and fruits...

If the East African colony only considers local food and clothing issues, then you can plant whatever you want, but the East African colony, as an area that Ernst will vigorously develop in the future, must prepare for industrialization after all.

If agriculture wants to pave the way for industrialization, it must first carry out modernization reforms and give full play to its scale advantages.

To put it bluntly, the agriculture in East Africa has to fight in the market to earn a lot of real money to accumulate the original capital of East Africa.

At present, the best template in Ernst's hands is Argentina. Argentina is a typical country that started from agriculture, regardless of various problems in its subsequent industrialization.

Just relying on the development of agriculture, Argentina has achieved great success, and East Africa and Argentina also have similarities, the same sparsely populated, and the same grasslands.

It's just that one is located in the temperate zone and subtropics, and the other is located in the tropics, and the land of the East African colonies is only a little weaker than the black soil of Argentina in terms of fertility.

The precipitation of the two is equal. The rainfall in northern Argentina can reach about 1500mm, while that in the south is only about 600mm. In East Africa, it decreases from east to west, and reaches a peak in the Great Lakes region. The level of the whole region is between 600mm and 1500mm. .

This level is not bad in the world. Intuitive data: The annual precipitation in the North China Plain is about 600mm, and it is concentrated in July and August.

In East Africa, there are two rainy seasons, the small rainy season from November to December and the heavy rainy season from April to May.

The main reason why the East African colonies advocate the development of agriculture is that the cost of developing agriculture is relatively low. As long as the land is reasonably planned and some production tools are improved, the requirements for technology and personnel are not as high as those of industry.

However, if you want to develop agriculture, taking the "small peasant economy" is definitely a dead end in this era of the jungle. It has more than enough self-preservation and weak development. In the end, it will still be defeated by the low-cost advantage of large-scale agricultural production.

The salient feature of capitalist agriculture is the centralized management of land, the most prominent of which are the "Prussian model" and the "American model".

Its essence is to concentrate the land in the hands of a few people, unify the operation, hit the market with scale advantages, and occupy the market to obtain huge profits.

The land property rights of the East African colonies were directly in the hands of Ernst, so there was no need for top-down reforms like Prussia.

But Ernst himself did not abuse blacks, so it is different from American manors.

That being the case, Ernst directly adopts the model of the big farm and forget it.

All the land in East Africa is Ernst's private property, and the immigrants have no property rights. They are agricultural workers in the farm.

The way to get paid is naturally to work more and get more, and work less and get less.

The current East African colonies directly divide several large agricultural regions according to climate and rainfall, and the same crops are uniformly planted in the regions.

The Great Lakes region in the west, the Lake Solon region, the North Malawi Lake region, the East Malawi Lake region, and the central plateau region, southern Kenya is dominated by wheat cultivation.

It is determined according to the eating habits of the immigrants and market demand. Whether it is the immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the immigrants from the Far East and North China, they all have the habit of eating pasta, and the main market for food in Europe is naturally wheat.

The three coastal areas in the east and the coastal plain in eastern Kenya are dominated by rice cultivation.

To the east of the prairies and the Great Lakes, to the northern highlands, and to the north of Kenya is the development of millet and animal husbandry.

Among them, wheat and animal husbandry are the main means of income generation in the East African colonies besides cash crops.

Both of these have a deep market in Europe. Even if Europe can't squeeze in, the Arabs can still eat it. After all, most Arabs survive on commerce and nomads, and their own output is too little.

The Far East is not considered by Ernst. The main reason is that the Far East is not rich at present, and it is a purely agricultural production area. It is also poor and the market competition is still fierce.

In the previous life, the most popular crops in East Africa were estimated to be corn and cassava, but Ernst chose wheat to develop East Africa.

Although corn and cassava are high-yield, both have certain defects, and the cost of processing is higher than that of wheat. Moreover, due to the eating habits of immigrants and the European market, they still focus on wheat cultivation.

Cash crops, the largest cash crop in the East African colony is naturally sisal.

In addition to sisal, Ernst plans to plant oil crops, rubber plantations, tea plantations, cotton plantations, and coffee plantations for five important economic crops.

In addition to these major economic crops, there are also dominant crops such as cloves and pyrethrum.

In the previous life, East Africa was an important cotton-producing area in Africa. All countries in East Africa have planted cotton, so cotton cultivation is not a problem, and the market is relatively easy to find. Backed by Germany, it can still be digested on one-third of an acre of land in Germany.

There are more oil crops to choose from. Traditional oil crops such as peanuts, sesame, soybeans, etc. can all be grown. In East Africa, there are also castor, small sunflower...

Rubber plantations are mainly planned in the coastal areas and around the Great Lakes, areas with relatively abundant water.

Tea is mainly planted in some mountainous and high-altitude areas. It is enough to just plant a large amount of black tea as in the previous life. Anyway, Europeans can't drink any difference.

These are all crops that need to be produced intensively, and the rest will not be elaborated. The land and climate conditions in East Africa are too superior.

In the previous life, East Africa also had flower industry, and all kinds of tropical fruits and vegetables. Of course, Ernst was also greedy, but the current technical level is not up to it, and it is impossible to achieve large-scale short-term transportation.

Even the animal husbandry industry, Ernst has no way to directly develop it on a large scale in East Africa. The entire region of East Africa is suitable for the development of animal husbandry. The problem is that the fresh-keeping technology is really awkward.

Unless Ernst initially processed the meat in East Africa to make various pickled foods, but all of these would take time.

(End of this chapter)