Under the economic transformation, it is natural that the largest industry in East Africa, that is, agriculture, cannot be bypassed, and industrialization is not to abandon agriculture, but to further improve the production efficiency of agriculture.

For this reason, Ernst said at a government work conference: "Agriculture is the basis of the national economy and a prerequisite for survival and all production. Therefore, throughout the 80s and 90s, we should still attach importance to the issue of agricultural development, focusing on continuously improving agricultural production efficiency, especially promoting the diversification of agriculture, and doing our utmost to give full play to the advantages of East African agriculture and realize the linkage development between agriculture and industry. ”

Before that, Ernst would not say anything about the linkage between agriculture and industry, because in the past, the scale of industry in East Africa was not as large as that of handicrafts, but now he has finally saved some money to promote the common development of agriculture and industry.

"What is agricultural diversification? And what does it have to do with our agriculture in East Africa? Agricultural diversification is not to put eggs in one basket, for example, in terms of staple foods, our two major staple foods in East Africa are wheat and rice, but we must know that the land of East Africa, in corn, millet, sorghum, soybeans and other food crops planting talent is much greater than other countries in the world. ”

Of course, the latter food crops are easy to produce in East Africa, but it is difficult to surpass wheat and rice in terms of taste, but turnip greens have their own preferences, and they can always find their right people, so the East African diet has been diverse from the beginning.

"The first thing that agriculture solves is the problem of eating, which is also the first impression that most people have of agriculture, but how agriculture provides the basic conditions for industrial development is easy to overlook."

"Take the textile industry as an example, the main raw materials of the textile industry, cotton, hemp, raw silk, etc., are all derived from agricultural production activities, and in the 19th century, the textile industry was the world's largest industry."

"Britain, as the first industrialized country, can be said to have had its early industrialization driven entirely by the textile industry, including the American slave trade, and also by the demand for labor on cotton plantations."

"In the 19th century, agriculture provided the vast majority of the raw materials for industry, and then it was the turn of mining."

In the future, with the progress of science and technology, there will be the chemical industry, but the chemical industry is still inseparable from agriculture and mining to provide the most basic raw materials, which is essentially the expansion of the application of raw material attributes.

In East Africa, agriculture and mining are relatively prosperous, but they are not developed, because the production efficiency is still not up to the level of European and American countries, of course, this does not include Eastern European countries such as Tsarist Russia.

To tell the truth, it is more difficult for a country like Tsarist Russia to develop agriculture than in East Africa, which is determined by the climate, whether in terms of output, variety, or area.

Tsarist Russia has nothing more than the world's largest area of high-quality black soil arable land, but except for this, there is no advantage, the black soil is the most fertile, but the hydrothermal conditions are too poor, and only one season of production a year can be achieved.

Moreover, the effective land area of Tsarist Russia is much smaller than that of East Africa, which is the first in the world, the second is the United States, and then the Far East Empire.

East Africa's arable land is mainly provided by a few large plateaus, which naturally cannot be compared with the contiguous Great Plains of North America, and the Congo rainforest and deserts alone occupy nearly 3 million square kilometers of land in East Africa.

But the western United States also has the massive Rocky Mountains, which occupy one-third of the size of the United States, and the United States is much smaller than East Africa.

Of course, the agricultural conditions of East Africa also have their own disadvantages, that is, the quality of the land, but the quality of the land mainly depends on the later governance and improvement, in the 21st century, a lot of land depends on chemical fertilizers and scientific farming methods, and in any case, the quality of land in East Africa is better than that of the Far Eastern Empire as a whole.

When East Africa wins Mozambique, East Africa can still have its own black soil, although the black soil area of Mozambique is much smaller, but it also fills a gap in the soil of East Africa.

Ernst continued: "So you have to see the correlation between agriculture and industry, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Industry should communicate more, to put it simply, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Foreign Trade have more to deal with, because we mainly focus on the most basic grain exports, but now that the Ministry of Industry is involved, it is necessary to increase the added value of agricultural products, so that re-exports can obtain greater value, and at the same time extend the industrial chain." ”

"For example, canned food, our canned fruit industry in East Africa is very popular in Tsarist Russia, and at the same time solves the problem that fruits are not resistant to putting and is not easy to store, opening up their sales channels, and related factories have solved the employment problem of some people."

"Or our sisal industry, the sisal industry in East Africa has developed very rapidly in recent years, but the sisal processing plants in East Africa were inefficient and the production capacity was small, through nearly 20 years of efforts, now the sisal processing in East Africa has finally gotten rid of external dependence, such as hemp rope, linen and other industrial products, we can meet customer needs."

Ernst chattered endlessly, mainly to enlighten his subordinates, after all, sitting in the office all day long, you can't find business opportunities.

"Finally, there is the issue of livestock, which is one of the three most important components of agriculture in East Africa."

At present, East African agriculture is mainly divided into three major areas, namely cash crop cultivation, food crop cultivation, and finally animal husbandry.

"In addition to solving the problem of meat, dairy products, leather, and other raw materials, the most important thing in animal husbandry is to provide power for industrial and agricultural production, so the expansion of animal husbandry must continue."

The steam engine is such a stupid and stupid thing, many places in East Africa cannot afford to use, and it is not easy to move, not to mention that East Africa is also the same in Europe.

At present, the main force of agriculture is still manpower and animal power, in addition to the needs of industrial and agricultural production, transportation and logistics are also extremely dependent on animal power.

Therefore, expanding the scale of livestock farming is very important for East Africa at present, and it is one of the important parts of improving the productivity of East Africa.

Animal husbandry and cash crop cultivation actually contribute more to the economy of East Africa than the cultivation of food crops.

Everything in East Africa is based on the cultivation of food to meet domestic demand and export, which involves an important role of agriculture in the early stages of industrialization, that is, the accumulation of raw capital.

In the early days, East Africa's military spending and national construction funds largely depended on grain planting, and the cultivation cycle of cash crop planting was longer than that of grain crop planting, such as tea, rubber, coffee, etc., which required seven or eight years of development in East Africa before it began to generate income, and the scale has only reached the level of international competition in recent years.

This reason is very simple, the first step in the development of East Africa is naturally to solve the problem of food for immigrants, so early agriculture must be based on the cultivation of food crops, and only after solving the problem of food and clothing can we focus on the cultivation of more profitable cash crops and the development of animal husbandry.

"All in all, agricultural development can promote industrial development, agriculture is the dominant industry in East Africa, the industrial sector in East Africa should actively connect with the agricultural sector, and further transmit the advantages of agriculture into the advantages of industrial development, and multi-sectoral cooperation is also the inevitable choice and future trend of large-scale national governance." Ernst concluded.

(End of chapter)