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, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are the main markets of East Africa.

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, which have been affected the most. Among them, the United Kingdom has 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 to start the war. After the South African War, East Africa did give traditional agricultural exporting countries very much in the agricultural field. Enormous pressure.

Especially the United Kingdom, the United States, or other tropical countries, East Africa has caught up with its advantages in land area and population, and has had a serious impact on the original international cash crop market, especially the tropical and subtropical cash crop market, in the field of cash crop cultivation.

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 are 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. 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 its land area is smaller, India has a large proportion of arable land and a population of 300 million. Its labor costs are even lower than that of a slave country in East Africa. And with the support of the British, India's agricultural advantages are still relatively large. , 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 certain competition with East African agriculture, they are relatively less affected due to different latitudes and climates.

Ernst told the Ministry of Agriculture: "Our 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 we are facing the impact of the downturn in the international market. This is not good news for our 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.”

In fact, the world's demand for agricultural products is very strong. After all, the per capita consumption of agricultural products in various countries in the world at the beginning of the 20th century was far from what it was in later generations. At the beginning of the 20th century, people's lives in many areas were very difficult.

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.

In other parts of the world, except for industrial countries or some colonies, basically everyone lives 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.

Of course, East Africa is 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 this crisis should not last too long. The government must withstand the pressure and maintain current agricultural production. As industrialization advances, agricultural development will also move towards mechanization in the future. 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 progressed 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 East African industrialization do not need to be borne entirely by agriculture. This is the benefit of colonial countries. A large part of the wealth of East African countries comes from the plunder of black people. The wealth has been firmly in the hands of the state since the early days of the founding of the country.

The situation in the Soviet Union is completely different from that in East Africa. In order to raise funds for initial development, the Soviet Union even had to sell antiques. After all, the coup led to a large number of former Russian upper classes who controlled wealth fleeing overseas, and the early Soviet regime did not control the whole country. This meant that the upper class who controlled most of Russia's wealth had sufficient time to flee. At the same time, the original ruling class of society destroyed factories and other infrastructure in the war against the Soviet regime, further destroying Russia's original industry.

It is equivalent to the original social wealth of Russia being directly looted, and the Soviet Union was able to intercept only a small part of it. Therefore, the Soviet Union faced serious financial difficulties in industrialization, and even the Far Eastern Empire faced serious financial difficulties in its initial industrialization. The Far Eastern Empire was even worse than the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's industrialization stage happened to encounter the opportunity of the great crisis of the capitalist world, while the Far Eastern Empire not only did not have this opportunity but also faced a more serious blockade.

In comparison, East Africa is undoubtedly much luckier, at least the international environment is much better, and as a slave country, East Africa can avoid many problems by exploiting the indigenous people. As for the fate of black people, it is not within the consideration of the East African government.

"Ensuring the export of agricultural products is an important task for the next period of time. At the same time, the digestion of agriculture by our industry is also greatly improved. The scope of this agricultural crisis cannot be compared with the agricultural crisis in 1873, so we don't need to worry too much." Ernst said.

During the agricultural crisis in 1873, East Africa's domestic agriculture was still dominated by food crops, but in 1907, East African agricultural planting had shifted to cash crops. At the same time, through the suppression of agriculture in other tropical countries in the 1990s, East African agriculture is still very strong in its ability to resist pressure, and the economic crisis in 1907 is far less serious than the economic crisis in 1873. Ernst had never heard of this economic crisis in his previous life, so the market should recover faster.