Chapter 986 Peasants move to the city

In addition to the development of the new west, the Dar es Salaam urban area, three new steel industry bases, the first large road and bridge three-dimensional transportation network, etc., during the First Five-Year Plan, the East African government will continue to invest in the basic industrial sector, namely energy, mining, metallurgy, petroleum, chemicals, electricity, automobiles and other industries.

"In 1905, the urbanization level in East Africa should be increased by two to three percentage points, reaching at least 25%, striving to surpass the Austro-Hungarian Empire and catch up with France. my country's urbanization level is comparable to that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but Austria, Bohemia and other regions within the Austro-Hungarian Empire have strong industrial strength, so we should face up to the gap. Among the great powers, the urbanization and industrialization levels of Britain, Germany, the United States and France are far higher than those of East Africa."

"So it is unrealistic to surpass the above four countries in a short period of time. Among these four countries, France has the lowest level of industrialization, but it is also above 30%, which is at least 10 percentage points higher than that of East Africa, and this gap cannot be offset in a short period of time."

After all, at the end of the 19th century, the industrial development speed of various countries was relatively fast, and France was no exception. From the 1880s to the present, according to information obtained by the East African government, the French government is expected to invest 5 billion francs to build its own roads, ports, railways and other infrastructure.

If there were no Germany and the United States in the same era, France's industrialization progress would not be inferior to any country. Although the industrial scale of East Africa has grown rapidly, the population growth rate of East Africa is also high. The two offset each other, which is not so impressive. After all, the overall population of France has not changed much, and the average increase in industry is much higher than that of East Africa.

This is also the reason why East Africa wants to implement its own industrial development plan. The industrial plan itself is to increase domestic industrial investment in a short period of time, thereby rapidly promoting the country's industrialization process.

However, East Africa is still relatively modest, setting the urbanization level in 1905 at 25%. This increase is actually not much faster than the development speed of many normal capitalist countries. Take Germany as an example. Its urbanization level has increased from 50% in 1895 to about 54% today. In the same five years, Germany's urbanization rate has increased by about 4%. This also shows the conservatism of East Africa's First Five-Year Plan.

There is no other way. Although industrialization is the key task of East Africa, Ernst must also seek progress in a stable manner. East Africa is not the Soviet Union, and it can communicate between the state and the people to devote all its energy to industrial construction.

One of the important sources of funds for the Soviet Union's First Five-Year Plan is Soviet agriculture. In order to provide funds for industrial development, the Soviet Union has long suppressed the price of agricultural products. It is not only the Soviet Union, but also East Africa and any other country that will exploit agriculture when developing industry, because before the industrial age, agriculture was the most important source of national income.

The funds for national industrial development must be obtained from agriculture. Take Britain as an example. In addition to exploiting its own farmers, its industrial development funds are also completed through plunder. The most important colonies of Britain in the early days, India and the United States, were all agricultural areas.

Therefore, raising funds for early industrial development is inseparable from the plunder of agriculture. East Africa can only obtain part of the industrial funds from backward regions and countries relative to East Africa through industrial production and trade activities, and East Africa's own colonies are basically worthless scraps, which cannot provide much value to East Africa for the time being.

During the First Five-Year Plan, industry was the focus of East African countries' development, and vice versa, the emphasis on agriculture naturally declined, but the status of agriculture as the foundation of the country will not change.

Ernst said: "I have always emphasized the importance of agriculture. Ensuring the food security of East Africans is fundamental, so correspondingly, our country must ensure a certain base of arable land, maintain at least 100% of grain production, and be self-sufficient. On this basis, we will develop high value-added agriculture."

As time goes by, East Africa now pays more and more attention to cash crops and animal husbandry, and East Africa's grain production is still in surplus, so on this basis, the East African government naturally has to change its thinking.

"For big countries, food security is the lifeline. Some small countries can fully develop high value-added agriculture by relying on the economy or big countries, but for big countries like us in East Africa, it is obviously impossible to entrust the life and death of our country to other countries."

In the past, the Dutch agriculture was very developed. The Netherlands actually developed agriculture with a business attitude, and low input and high output were its basic principles.

The Netherlands has basically given up low-value-added agriculture such as grain production, and focused on developing high-value-added vegetable and flower horticulture, dairy and meat animal husbandry, agricultural product processing, and seed and livestock breeding industries.

The Netherlands' agricultural exports are mainly flowers, vegetables, meat, dairy products, and various agricultural product processing products, while imports are mainly low-value-added grains, feed, oil raw materials, etc., as well as tropical agricultural products that it cannot produce itself.

The Netherlands is attached to the EU system. If other European countries blockade the Netherlands, then the Netherlands' agriculture will naturally be finished. However, as a small country like the Netherlands, it has few options and no threats. In addition, it has other advantages such as geographical location, ports, and rivers, so it can develop well.

Obviously, the agricultural development model of the Netherlands in the past is not replicable for a super-large country like East Africa, unless other countries in the world import agricultural products from East Africa, which is obviously impossible.

However, the fact that East Africa cannot replicate this agricultural model does not mean that the region cannot, especially the economically developed and conveniently transported areas such as the Dar es Salaam urban circle.

With the development of industry and cities in East Africa, there is naturally more and more domestic demand for high value-added agriculture, the most important of which are fruits, vegetables and animal husbandry.

So Ernst said: "On the premise of ensuring national food security, the development of animal husbandry and cash crops outside the city is one of the important goals of East African agriculture in the First Five-Year Plan. The relatively abundant supply of products is also one of the important means of siphoning agricultural population into the city."

In other words, it is necessary to artificially improve urban living conditions, thereby stimulating the agricultural population in East Africa to move to the city, thereby promoting the country's industrialization.

After all, agriculture in East Africa is quite unique. Under the agricultural system in East Africa, the quality of life of farmers is relatively stable and the risk is small. If it is in other countries, it will not be conducive to the development of cities. The most typical example is France. During the Napoleonic era, the quality of life of French farmers was relatively high, but this also limited the development of industry and cities in France to a certain extent.

Of course, improving the treatment of urban residents is only one of the means for the East African government to accelerate the migration of farmers to cities and become citizens and workers. Under the East African system, in fact, a large number of agricultural households enter the city to work every year, especially after the 1980s, the demand for foreign immigration in East Africa has declined, and more energy is to promote the agricultural residents who have already branched out in the country to cities through administrative means.

However, this process is not too intense. Urbanization must eventually be consistent with the level of industrialization. Excessive urbanization will form a large number of urban poor people like the Latin American countries in the past. After all, the industrial level of the country cannot provide more employment plans, which is bound to lead to the vigorous development of black and gray industries, thus causing the collapse of social order.