African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 881 The Feasibility of Mechanization of Cash Crops

For Angola’s agriculture, the previous main work of the East African government was to restore production in local plantations and farms. Now this goal has been achieved. After the Portuguese withdrew, East Africa completed the restoration of local agricultural order in four years.

What followed was the solution to social security problems. To put it bluntly, the black slaves who fled throughout Angola during the war were recaptured and put into work in plantations and farms.

While resuming production, East Africa will simultaneously restore Angola’s original commodity export market. Otherwise, the agricultural products will have nowhere to go, and the East African government’s work will be in vain.

East Africa’s response strategy is to simultaneously advance the domestic and foreign markets. One is to restore the original Portuguese product sales channels in Angola. However, due to the relationship between the two countries, this has not progressed much.

Therefore, East Africa urgently needs to develop a new shipping market, and this naturally falls on Germany. On ocean routes, the west coast of East Africa is the fastest to reach Germany.

 Originally, the release membrane of the East African port was in the east, so the direct maritime trade between East Africa and Germany required a detour through the Strait of Gibraltar, otherwise it could only be transferred through the Austro-Hungarian Empire Railway.

With the addition of ports on the west coast, East African ships can directly reach Atlantic ports such as Bremen and Hamburg in Germany, or enter ports along the Baltic Sea through the Skagerrak Strait or the future Kiel Canal in Germany.

At this time, the Kiel Canal has not yet been opened. The construction of the Kiel Canal had begun before the South African War in 1887. According to the current project progress, the opening of the Kiel Canal will have to wait until at least next year, that is, 1885.

 In addition to the reconstruction of the international market, the establishment of the domestic market is also an important way for Angola to get out of its predicament. After the construction of the two north-south railways in Benguela and Luanda, central East Africa and Angola have established connections.

For example, a series of machines such as tractors, seeders, cultivators, harvesters, planters, binders, lawn mowers, and shippers have all been invented.

Taking Lubumbashi, the capital of Swabia, as an example, the straight-line distance from the east-west seaport is about 1,400 kilometers. At this time, the choice of the eastern or western seaport mainly depends on the location of the product export market, such as Austria. For the Hungarian Empire, it is naturally more cost-effective to go to sea from the east. If it is Germany, it is more cost-effective to go to sea from the west.

 In East Africa, farms mainly focus on growing food crops, with some livestock breeding and vegetable planting. The mechanization of food crops, especially grain agriculture, has already taken shape in developed areas.

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Plantation agriculture distributes many plant resources, such as natural rubber, coffee, cocoa, tea, banana, pineapple, mango, oil palm, sisal, tobacco, cotton and jute, etc., and most of them cannot be mechanized. It’s homework, or it can’t be realized at present.

“As for Angola’s agriculture, the Portuguese put more thought into the local area, but our investment resources are mainly concentrated in Mozambique, and most of them are based on the farm economy, while Angola is mainly based on the plantation economy,” Goldstein said.

 The current plantation economy requires a large amount of labor, which is true in any region dominated by plantation economies, while the farm economy can quickly reduce costs through mechanization.

This is also a case of mutual benefit and win-win, which means that industrial and agricultural products from the central region can not only go to sea from eastern East Africa, but also from western ports.

 At present, European and American countries, like East Africa, are vigorously promoting agricultural mechanization, but this is a long process. In previous generations, it was not until around World War II that European and American developed countries realized overall agricultural mechanization.

 This is also the general direction of the current agricultural reform in East Africa, so Mozambique, which has mainly plain terrain and excellent water and heat conditions, was selected as a key experimental area in East Africa.

Tropical cash crops, such as rubber, sugar cane, and cotton, currently only rely on manpower. In East Africa, like other countries, a large number of black slaves are used as cheap labor. In addition, the current cash crops are highly profitable, so they have become the main agricultural products in East Africa. Source of income. Angola’s agricultural model is mainly based on the tropical plantation industry. The proportion of agriculture such as food and fishery is significantly different from that of tropical plantations.

In response to this point, Goldstein said: "At present, my country's tropical cash crop cultivation industry still relies heavily on low-cost indigenous 'laborers' as the main source of power. This is obviously inconsistent with our country's national policy of eliminating black labor in the next twenty years. Therefore, our Ministry of Agriculture’s view on this point is to vigorously support scientific research institutions to improve agricultural tools and reduce dependence on cheap labor for some cash crops that may be mechanized for planting and harvesting.”

Some of the tropical cash crops that Goldstein mentioned are mainly non-woody plant crops, such as rubber, fruit trees, tea, etc. Even in the 21st century, large-scale mechanized operations have not been realized, but cotton, sugar cane, etc. Feasibility is mainly reflected in harvesting.

Of course, for rubber and fruit trees, East Africa does not have a good solution. It can only continue to maintain the status quo, but it can reduce the cost of some links.

For example, through railway and road construction, transportation costs can be reduced. Although large-scale mechanized harvesting cannot be achieved, small modern agricultural equipment can be developed to facilitate plantation workers to complete harvesting, pruning and other work processes.

Another important reason for the low mechanization rate of cash crops in the world is that developed countries such as Europe and the United States are not major cash crop planting countries. For example, the United States mainly completes the generation production of cash crops on the Caribbean coast by controlling neighboring countries to meet its own needs.

 Countries such as Britain and France can reduce production costs through cheap labor costs in colonies in South Asia, Southeast Asia or West Africa.

 The labor cost of the current economic colony itself is extremely low, which further increases the research, development and promotion of mechanization in tropical cash crops.

 As for the countries that can make a difference in this field, there is no doubt that only East Africa has the ability and demand to promote the mechanization project of tropical cash crops.

 First of all, East Africa is an independent and sovereign country and can independently formulate its own strategic development direction. This is the biggest advantage that the colonies of European and American countries do not have.

Secondly, East Africa has a huge advantage compared with its peers in the field of science and technology. East Africa's competitors are generally backward countries and colonies, and their scientific and technological levels are extremely backward.

Finally, East Africa needs to promote the mechanization of tropical cash crops. East Africa itself is the largest country in tropical cash crop cultivation, far surpassing countries such as Brazil. Secondly, East Africa cannot always rely on black slaves to ensure its competitiveness in this field. Black slaves are bound to be necessary in the future. Replaced by East African nationals.

East Africa also has ambitions, which is to become the future operator of the world's tropical cash crop industry just like the United States in the world's commercial grain agriculture.

To achieve this goal, it is necessary to gain all-round advantages in this field and defeat other competitors. After losing the price advantage of black slaves, East Africa can only work hard in the field of science and technology to achieve this goal.

 Hence the realistic needs, East Africa must increase investment in this field. Otherwise, according to the climate conditions in East Africa, it will be very difficult to compete with European and American countries in the traditional agricultural field.

Of course, if East Africa is allowed to complete the mechanization of most of its tropical cash crops, it will be difficult for countries such as Brazil and Southeast Asia in the future. However, this is not a problem that East Africa is worried about. Even if it does not crush these countries through technological means, East Africa is currently the world's largest economy. It is the largest and most powerful country in tropical cash crop cultivation.

Considering the hard work and difficulty of mechanization of tropical cash crop cultivation, if East Africa no longer develops its efforts in this field, the agricultural economy in the future will remain a labor-intensive industry just like in its previous life.

And East Africa cannot always rely on labor-intensive industries in the future. This is not in line with East Africa's current national strength, status and ambitions.

 (End of this chapter)