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 resume Angola's original commodity export market. Otherwise, if agricultural products are produced but have nowhere to go, then 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 made much progress.

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 film 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.

After 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 or the future Kiel Canal in Germany.

At this time, the Kiel Canal had 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 construction of the domestic market is also an important way for Angola to get out of its predicament. After the construction of the north-south railways in Benguela and Luanda, central East Africa and Angola have established connections.

This is also a case of mutual benefit, 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.

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.

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“Regarding Angola’s agriculture, the Portuguese pay more attention to 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 the plantation economy, and the farm economy can quickly reduce costs through mechanization.

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.

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.

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

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 developed European and American 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.

The agricultural model in Angola is mainly based on the tropical plantation industry, and the proportion of agriculture such as food and fishery is significantly different from that of tropical plantations.

Regarding 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 has no good solution. It can only continue to maintain the status quo, but it can achieve cost reductions in some links.

For example, through railway and highway 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 growers. For example, the United States mainly controls neighboring countries on the Caribbean coast to complete the production of cash crops to meet its own needs.

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

The current labor costs of such economic colonies are extremely low, which further increases the research and 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 of tropical cash crops.

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

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

Finally, East Africa needs to promote the mechanization of tropical cash crops. East Africa itself is the largest tropical cash crop grower, far exceeding countries such as Brazil. Secondly, East Africa cannot always rely on black slaves to ensure its competitiveness in this field. Black slaves will inevitably be replaced by East African citizens in the future.

Moreover, East Africa is also ambitious, that is, to become the manipulator of the world's tropical cash crop industry in the future, just like the United States in the world's commodity 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.

Therefore, the reality needs to force East Africa to increase investment in this field, otherwise, according to the climate conditions in East Africa, it is very difficult to compete with European and American countries in the traditional agricultural field.

Of course, if East Africa completes the mechanization of most tropical cash crops, then Brazil and Southeast Asian countries will have a hard time in the future, but this is not a problem that East Africa is worried about. Even if these countries are not crushed by scientific and technological means, East Africa is currently the world's largest and most powerful country in the tropical cash crop planting industry.

However, considering the hardship and mechanization difficulty of tropical cash crop planting, if East Africa no longer exerts its strength in this field, the agricultural economy in the future will be a labor-intensive industry like in the past.

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