This possibility was only a few years ago, and the Japanese Navy had already developed at present, and it was basically impossible for the Far Eastern Imperial Navy to "take control" again.

Throughout the eighties, the navies of the United States, Japan, and the Far East were expanded, and the East African Navy lagged behind in this regard, but with the end of the South African War, Ernst did not intend to focus on military expansion in the future.

Moreover, due to the high military spending caused by the high-intensity war throughout the year, and the impact of the war on East Africa's foreign trade, East Africa suffered great economic losses.

After the end of the war with the British, the surrounding environment of East Africa was safe for the next 20 years, so the next 10 years East Africa should devote itself to economic development, especially to promote industrial upgrading.

……

First Town City.

The Ministry of Agriculture reports to Ernst on the current state of agriculture in East Africa.

"Over the past 20 years, our agriculture has achieved remarkable results, with a total of 60 million hectares of new arable land opened up in the eighties alone, which is more than two to three times the total arable land area of Germany (at this time Germany was larger than later generations), and the total arable land of the country reached 120 million hectares," said the Minister of Agriculture. ”

Officials in East Africa have always liked to use Germany as a reference for their data, and in addition to the national attributes of East Africa, the most important thing is that East Africa only knows Germany best.

140 million hectares is about 1.8 billion acres of land, and of course, the scale of this kind of land in East Africa is completely small compared to the United States, which is about 4 billion, and may even exceed 5 billion acres.

In this era, the United States had not yet experienced the severe beating of the "black storm" and did not attach much importance to environmental issues, and in addition to the western development movement, the area of cultivated land in the United States had doubled compared with that of the 60s, when the cultivated land in the United States had already exceeded 2 billion mu.

In East Africa, on the contrary, the development of land was conservative, and although the pace of expansion was not slow, in the 80s it also returned farmland to many areas that were "unsuitable" for agricultural development, and these areas were generally dominated by water and other problems.

In 1890, the population of the United States was more than 60 million, and East Africa was at least no less than 50 million, after all, the population of East Africa had exceeded 30 million ten years ago, and the number of blacks directly exceeded 50 million, and now Mozambique and Angola have joined, and the entire population of East Africa (including blacks) is likely to be close to or exceed 60 million or even 70 million.

In other words, East Africa relies on half of the arable land area of the United States, feeding about the same number of people.

Of course, the United States has been in North America for more than 100 years, and the colonization history of Spain, France and Britain has been directly more than hundreds of years (Spain set up a colony in Florida in 1565).

Second, U.S. agriculture is more inclined to commercialization than to the so-called "food and clothing" problem, for example, a large number of agricultural products in the United States are actually used as feed and raw materials for industrial production in animal husbandry, and East Africa is certainly not up to the level of the United States at present.

Of course, the development of agriculture in East Africa is not to solve the problem of "food and clothing", but to start from the problem of food security in East Africa's national security, and then focus on the development of cash crop agriculture.

A large amount of arable land in East Africa is used to produce tropical cash crops, and it is staggered with the United States, the world's largest agricultural power.

If we rely solely on grain planting, East Africa will not be able to take advantage of the international agricultural market at all, not to mention that the United States, even Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia are all agricultural powers, and it will be difficult for East Africa to squeeze into this part of the market no matter how much grain it produces.

The most important thing is the issue of channels, East Africa has a short history, and what is most lacking in the traditional agricultural field is channels, so concentrating on the development of tropical cash crop cultivation is the only way for East Africa to play a role in the international agricultural market, and the grain market can only be developed slowly.

"However, the overall development level of China's agriculture is still at a low level, especially in the fields of mechanization and fertilizer, which is far behind the European and American powers."

"As of 1889, the number of agricultural harvesters in China is more than 7,300 units, and there are more than 5,000 imported from Austria and Germany, and there are only less than 2,000 domestic productions, most of which were produced in the eighties, and in the early eighties, the number of agricultural harvesters in Germany may exceed more than 20,000 units, and now I am afraid that it will be about 7 or 80,000, like the United States and Britain will only be more."

In the early eighties, the number of harvesters in Germany reached more than 20,000, and now it is almost the nineties, so the number of agricultural harvesters in Germany may have increased several times.

As of now, the number of agricultural harvesters in East Africa has only reached more than 7,000 units, this gap is too big, you must know that the arable land area of Germany is far less than that of East Africa, only one-sixth of East Africa, but the number of agricultural harvesters is more than ten times that of East Africa.

Therefore, according to the unit area, the penetration rate of agricultural harvesters in East Africa is not even one-seventieth of that in Germany.

"Today, China is vigorously promoting the research and development of internal combustion engine tractors, and has produced a total of 53 sets of tractors powered by internal combustion engines, which have been piloted in many cities, which is an important breakthrough in China's agricultural production efficiency."

Agricultural tractors have always been a key development project in East Africa, which was mainly steam-powered until the past, and East Africa is one of the powerhouses in the field of internal combustion engines.

"Of course, far water can not quench the thirst, the current government is mainly to promote the promotion of large-scale livestock in rural areas, in the past ten years, the scale of animal husbandry in China has doubled, which provides conditions for the development of rural areas and China's economic construction, in the window period when the internal combustion engine tractor and other agricultural tools have been popularized and promoted, animal power in the next two or three decades I am afraid it will still be the main source of power for China's agricultural development."

Of course, Augustine should have counted the blacks, and the fact that East Africa was able to almost double the size of arable land in the eighties was inseparable from the efforts of the black East Africans.

In particular, the construction of water conservancy projects has provided the necessary conditions for the development of a large amount of high-quality arable land in East Africa, and the construction of water conservancy projects in the developed agricultural areas of central and eastern East Africa and Somalia has tended to be perfected.

And to complete such a large-scale project in such a short period of ten years, in this era that can only be completed by manpower, the price paid is unimaginable, and the construction of water conservancy projects has even become the deadliest project for black people in East Africa, far more than railway construction.

Although the construction of the East African railway is not slow, the construction volume of the railway is destined not to be compared with the construction of water conservancy projects everywhere, many places in East Africa are starting from scratch, a large number of rivers and swamps need to be treated, and at the same time a larger number of diversion canals must be excavated, a large number of reservoirs and so on.

The suffering of blacks in East Africa is far from over, for example, Mozambique, which has a large amount of land suitable for agricultural development, still has to wait for East Africa to invest a lot of manpower, material and financial resources for development and construction.

Ernst is very satisfied with the report of the Ministry of Agriculture, agriculture is the foundation of the country, and the development of agriculture in East Africa has met its own psychological expectations, of course, this is only the first step in the development of agriculture in East Africa, and the first step has not yet been completed.

There is still a large amount of arable land in East Africa that has not been effectively utilized, and Ernst believes that the land resources of East Africa are at least one billion acres of land, not to mention the same as the United States, and should not be too much different, ensuring the third place in the world.

At present, the first place in the world is the United Kingdom, and the second is the United States, but most of the British land is a colony, and if you only compare the mainland, the United States far surpasses other countries.

As a cold zone country, Tsarist Russia has few crop varieties to choose from, but cannot fully invest in the cultivation of tropical cash crops like East Africa, and the traditional grain planting industry has not been very profitable in recent years because international grain prices have been kept low.

(End of chapter)