African Entrepreneurship Records Chapter 880

Chapter 880 Agriculture in Angola

 Golden Westin, Minister of Agriculture in East Africa, mentioned at the 1893 Angola General Agricultural Report:

“Agriculture in Angola can be divided into five parts: the northern tropical cash crop production area, the central plateau food crop production area, the southern traditional livestock raising area, the eastern marine fishery production area, and the western forestry resource production area.”

Marine fishery was one of the important pillar industries in Angola during the colonial era. It had reached its peak in the 16th century, when Angola's fishing industry reached its peak of prosperity.

 During this period, Angola's fishing industry not only exported large quantities of fish to mainland Portugal, but also supplied fish to other Portuguese colonies. Angola became one of the most important fishing areas of the Portuguese colonial empire.

Of course, later on, with the discovery of gold and silver mines in South America, Portugal's development focus shifted. Angola's marine fishery entered a period of decline along with Angolan agriculture. It was not until Portuguese power completely withdrew from Brazil that Angola and Mozambique regained attention.

But it was already too late at this time, because the rise of East Africa in the east made Portugal's re-investment basically in vain. Of course, Portugal had already embarked on the path of decline by this time, and its investment in the two places was far from being as strong as the national power in the 16th century. compared to the period.

As for forestry resources, Angola's forest area ranked second in Africa in its previous life, second only to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“During the Portuguese colonization, Angola mainly cultivated corn, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, peanuts, cotton, etc., as well as some European crops such as grapes, olives, and spices (spice was mainly introduced by the Dutch in the 17th century). They also introduced animal husbandry. industry, raising livestock such as cattle, sheep, and horses to provide meat and other animal products, and the Portuguese also cultivated large amounts of land for the cultivation of commodity crops such as coffee and palm trees.”

Angola, like Zimbabwe, has extremely favorable agricultural conditions. The former is known as the "breadbasket of southern Africa" ​​and the latter is the "bread basket of Africa."

However, knowing how to farm cannot solve the problem, especially in the large-scale agricultural socialization in colonial areas. All key details are in the hands of white people, including seeds, fertilizers, technology, sales channels, plantation and farm management, etc., none of them It is within the control of local indigenous people.

After all, farming can definitely be done. The colonists have been pushing for hundreds of years, and most of the labor force in plantations and farms are black slaves. If you say that the locals don't know how to farm, you are completely deceiving yourself, because the black slaves can't farm. , the plantations and farms of white colonists simply could not operate.

To put it bluntly, the local indigenous people do not know how to farm, or to be more precise, they do not know how to manage it.

Of course, this is the "honor" obtained by the two countries during the Portuguese and British colonial eras respectively. As for the fact that after the independence of the two countries, the agricultural structure collapsed rapidly, turning from a food exporting country into a country that cannot be self-sufficient in agriculture, it is actually completely true. reasonable.

Among other things, when white people withdrew from the area, the market that originally sold to the whole world was artificially interrupted, which became an unsolvable problem for local black people.

Moreover, these agricultures are all based on large plantations and farms. A plantation or farm often has hundreds or thousands of people. However, even the upper class of African indigenous people only have the ability to govern a tribe. They could manage well, but lacked the corresponding knowledge and technology, so the colonists built "barriers" from the beginning to prevent the local indigenous people from turning over.

Of course, East Africa will definitely not "sympathize" with these indigenous people, but will intensify it, because East Africa is a more determined exploiter.

Goldstein continued: "At present, various plantations, farms, and fisheries in Angola have basically resumed production. At the same time, we have newly established pasture and forestry management institutions. According to the Ministry of Agriculture's estimates, in the next twenty years, Angola's The total agricultural output value will become one of the new agricultural growth points in East Africa. Like new territories such as Mozambique and Orange, the local excellent agricultural resources will be fully developed, and then become a new engine for East African agriculture. " East Africa began with the Portuguese and the Boers. The agriculture they took over was a complete agricultural system, which was fundamentally different from the land previously plundered in East Africa.

Therefore, the preliminary work of the East African government does not require major changes to the local area. The most typical one is Orange. From the combination of latitude, terrain, vegetation, precipitation, population and other comprehensive factors, the most suitable place for development is animal husbandry. Industry.

The situation in Angola is the most complex. From tropical rainforest to savanna to tropical desert, Angola has the richest agricultural development conditions in East Africa. In addition, the Benguela cold current has spawned the world's top five natural fisheries, and its fishery resources are also very rich. Uniquely blessed.

“In 1892, Angola's agriculture had returned to pre-war levels. By 1893, the scale of Angola's agriculture had increased by 56%. Among them, the growth rate of marine fishery resource development ranked first in the country. Only in Oriental Province and under the Central Province.”

 Speaking of marine fishery development, it has always been one of East Africa's shortcomings. As a large maritime country, East Africa's marine fishery resource development rate has always been low. This can be fully reflected in the East African shipbuilding industry.

 Among the new ocean vessels in East Africa over the past three decades, fishing boats accounted for less than 20%. On the contrary, fishing boats in inland waters accounted for 59.56%.

East Africa's maritime ships mainly contribute to two categories: merchant ships and warships. Although the number of warships is small, their tonnage is large, and the large-scale development of transport ships provides conditions for East Africa's industrial and agricultural exports.

East Africa's primitive accumulation started from the development of agriculture and mineral resources, especially tropical cash crops, gemstones, and rare metals. In recent years, as the scale of East Africa's industry has increased rapidly, the export of industrial products has also developed rapidly.

 As a result of various reasons, East Africa has seriously insufficient investment in the development of marine resources, so that Angola's marine fishery resources can directly rank third in the country.

You must know that the current marine fishing industry in Angola under East African rule is actually a complete inheritance of the marine fishing industry from the Portuguese rule. Angola was only a colony of the Portuguese before, which means that the marine fishing industry in a colony could have been the same before. Compared to the whole of East Africa, this is astonishing.

 The surprising thing is not that Angola's marine fishing industry is developed, but that East Africa's marine fishing industry is too backward.

However, this backwardness is not caused by technology or other reasons, but by the economic development structure of East African countries. East Africa has been promoting the development of the three major industries of agriculture, mining, and industry, and the direction has always been from the eastern coast to the inland areas. Naturally, It is easy to ignore the utilization and development of marine resources.

Moreover, as a country with a large livestock industry and with many world-class lakes and many world-class rivers, East Africa has very developed inland fishery resources, so East Africa itself has rich sources of meat, and compared to other countries, East Africa has fewer excellent ports and other comprehensive reasons. , East Africa currently has little interest in promoting marine fishing industries.

Of course, this situation is bound to improve with the merger of Angola and Southwest Africa into East Africa. Especially the Southwest Africa region is extremely dependent on marine fishing. The local tropical desert climate is dominated by the region, which is not suitable for the development of other types of agriculture.

The port area in southern Angola is also in a similar situation to Southwest Africa. The coast is dominated by a tropical desert climate and there are many excellent ports. In addition to some military needs, it is suitable to be developed into a large fishing port.

 (End of this chapter)

Chapter end