Chapter 1049 Agricultural Crisis
Germany is one of the major importers of East African minerals and primary agricultural products, among which East African cotton occupies an important position in the German textile industry.
At present, almost all the raw materials of the German cotton textile industry are imported, and the German cotton textile industry ranks first in Europe and fourth in the world. In the past, Germany imported cotton mainly from the United Kingdom and the United States. After the cotton planting industry in East Africa grew, East Africa has become Germany's largest source of cotton imports.
Germany's annual cotton import volume was about one billion pounds, and it was still growing until 1907. The total cotton production in East Africa is currently about 2.3 billion pounds, of which nearly 400 million pounds are exported to Germany every year, plus Austria. The Hungarian Empire is close to 700 million pounds. Including Tsarist Russia and other major cotton importing countries, East Africa's annual cotton export output is more than one billion pounds, almost four to five million tons. Among them, Central and Eastern European countries are East Africa's main markets.
Therefore, the European economic crisis will have a great impact on the export of primary agricultural products in East Africa. Of course, cotton cultivation in East Africa has obviously had a huge impact on the world's cotton industry, especially the United States and the United Kingdom. Among them, the United Kingdom has a larger scale in India and Egypt. Huge cotton planting industry, and competition with East Africa.
Fortunately, the South African War broke out between East Africa and the United Kingdom early. Just to suppress the cotton planting and textile industries in East Africa was enough for the United Kingdom to find an excuse for the war. After the South African War, East Africa did give traditional agricultural exporting countries very much in the agricultural field. Huge pressure.
Especially the United Kingdom, the United States, or other tropical countries, East Africa has caught up from behind by virtue of its land area and population advantages. In the field of cash crop cultivation, it has had a serious impact on the original international cash crop market, especially the tropical and subtropical cash crop market.
This is true for crops such as cotton, rubber, tea, coffee, and some spices. During the First Five-Year Plan period, East African agricultural technology, mechanization, and pesticide and fertilizer production increased, which further reduced the cost of agricultural production in East Africa and had a great impact on the agricultural development of Brazil and India. Less agricultural countries will be hardest hit.
At that time, Brazil was far from being able to compete with East Africa in terms of land area and population. Moreover, the two countries’ agriculture was highly homogeneous, and East Africa was closer to the Eurasian market than Brazil. Therefore, Brazil could be said to be the first victim of the rise of East Africa’s agriculture. .
India is relatively better. Although the land area is smaller, India has a large proportion of arable land and a population of 300 million. The labor cost is even lower than that of the slave country in East Africa. And with the support of the United Kingdom, India still has a relatively large agricultural advantage. , but the high development of agriculture in East Africa also means that Britain’s exploitation of India has further intensified.
Except for these two countries, although other countries have a certain competitive relationship with East African agriculture, due to different latitudes and climates, they have been relatively less affected.
Ernst told the Ministry of Agriculture: "my country's agriculture is facing a relatively large impact from the world economic crisis. International agricultural product prices have remained low for a long time, and now it is facing the impact of the downturn in the international market. This is not good news for my country's agricultural development."
An official from the Ministry of Agriculture said: "Your Highness, we can't have a good solution for this. The only thing we can do is to absorb excess agricultural production capacity through large-scale industrial production in the country, and further distribute agricultural products to optimize the lives of the people in the country. quality levels to offset overproduction in the agricultural sector.”
For example, the Far Eastern Empire has been affected by various natural disasters all year round. In addition, the current internal situation in the Far Eastern Empire is turbulent, so famine is very widespread. Especially in 1906, when the Second Five-Year Plan for East Africa was launched vigorously, a severe drought broke out in the north of the Far Eastern Empire. And the most severely affected area is the Huaihai Economic Zone.
Other regions in the world, except for industrial countries or some colonies, basically live below the poverty line, and this kind of poverty may not allow them to eat at any time. Tsarist Russia is a typical example. After the Russo-Japanese War, Tsarist Russia resumed naval construction in order to pay off its debts, etc., and naturally harvested wealth again. Russia is only an agricultural country, not even a semi-industrial country, so one more tax increase If it further aggravates the suffering of the people at the bottom, it is no wonder that it will become the weakest link of imperialism.
East Africa is of course not much better, but East Africa only needs to ensure that the quality of life of its people is higher than the world average. As a slave country, East Africa does not need to put too much pressure on its people.
Ernst said: "The difficulties faced by the agricultural sector are relatively large, but the duration of this crisis should not be too long. The government must withstand the pressure and maintain current agricultural production. As industrialization advances, future agricultural development will also move toward mechanization. With great strides forward, the proportion of the agricultural population will also decrease significantly. When my country's industrialization reaches a certain level, the impact on the agricultural sector will become smaller and smaller."
The industrialization of East Africa is still very different from that of the Soviet Union. The main reason is that it is more stable. This makes the exploitation of agriculture in East Africa far less than that of the Soviet Union. Of course, there are still obvious differences between the agricultural population and the industrial population.
Without artificially creating this difference, the industrialization of East Africa would not have been able to proceed so smoothly. After all, the agricultural population will not actively move to industry unless their survival is threatened.
The second main reason is that the funds for industrialization in East Africa do not need to be entirely borne by agriculture. This is the benefit of colonial countries. A large part of the source of wealth in East African countries comes from the plunder of black people. The wealth has been firmly in the hands of the country since the early days of the founding of the country.
The situation in the Soviet Union was completely different from that in East Africa. In order to raise funds for initial development, the Soviet Union had to sell even its antiques. After all, the coup caused a large number of the former Russian upper class who controlled the wealth to flee overseas, and the early Soviet regime did not control the country, which was destined to control most of Russia's wealth. The upper class of society had sufficient time to escape. At the same time, the former ruling class of society wreaked havoc on factories and other infrastructure during the war against the Soviet regime, further destroying Russia's original industry.
It was equivalent to the original Russian social wealth being directly looted. As for the Soviet Union, only a small part could be intercepted. Therefore, the Soviet Union's industrialization and even the Far Eastern Empire's initial industrialization faced severe financial difficulties. The Far Eastern Empire was even worse than the Soviet Union. , the industrialization stage of the Soviet Union coincided with the opportunity of a major crisis in the capitalist world, while the Far Eastern Empire not only did not have such an opportunity, but also faced a more serious blockade.
In comparison, East Africa is undoubtedly much luckier. At least the international environment is much better. Moreover, as a slave country, East Africa can avoid many problems through the exploitation of indigenous people. As for the experience of black people, it is not considered by the East African government.
"Ensuring the export of agricultural products will be an important task in the next period. At the same time, my country's industry's digestion of agriculture is also greatly improved. After all, the scope of this agricultural crisis cannot be compared with the agricultural crisis of 1873, so we do not need to worry too much. ." Ernst said.
During the agricultural crisis in 1873, East Africa's domestic agriculture was still dominated by food crops. In 1907, East African agricultural planting had shifted to mainly cash crops. At the same time, through the suppression of agriculture in other tropical countries in the 1990s, East Africa's agricultural ability to withstand stress was still It was very powerful, and the economic crisis in 1907 was far less severe than the economic crisis in 1873. Ernst had never heard of this economic crisis in his previous life, so the market should recover faster.
(End of this chapter)