African Entrepreneurship Record-Chapter 472 - 150: Work Meeting

Starting from 1876, the railway bridge over the Zambezi River on the Central Railway in East Africa was completed, allowing trains to reach the Zimbabwe region directly. To develop the inland areas, East Africa began to establish its version of agricultural cooperatives along the Central Railway as a main artery.

"This year, we plan to build over fifteen hundred new-style agricultural cooperatives along the railway line in the Zimbabwe region to promote the development of inland areas," the Minister of Agriculture said at a government work meeting.

Agricultural cooperatives are actually not a unique Eastern industry model. Such organizations exist in regions with developed small and family farms like France and Germany, essentially union-type organizations formed spontaneously by farmers.

French law in a previous life stipulated: "Agricultural cooperatives and their cooperative alliances are a special type of enterprise different from civil and trading businesses, possessing independent legal rights and complete civil rights." Agricultural cooperatives are variable-capital enterprises.

East African agricultural cooperatives differ from those in France in a previous life because they are led by the East African government, constituting semi-political economic organizations, and land remains unprivatized, allocated for use by the kingdom.

The main functions of East African agricultural cooperatives are scientific planting guidance, providing good seeds, grain purchasing, storage, livestock and slave management and distribution, maintenance and management of agricultural tools, as well as organizing agricultural engineering construction.

The East African agricultural cooperatives are subordinate to the grassroots government in East Africa, but specific guidance is provided by the East African Agricultural Corporation, which is the upstream in the agricultural industry chain in East Africa.

The East African Agricultural Corporation exists only in East Africa proper, but it connects with the Heixinggen consortium industry cluster in Germany and Austria-Hungary, providing raw materials and basic agricultural products for these Heixinggen-related enterprises, maintaining connections with various commercial groups, and leading East African grain export work.

The main business is still procurement and sales, making the East African Agricultural Corporation a super agricultural monopoly organization similar to a syndicate. Unlike syndicate enterprises, it is exceptionally large, aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of East African agricultural products in the global market. This competition is not corporate but state-based competition, a favorable weapon for East African grain against the United States and Russia. While American grain producers are indeed strong, they appear like loose bands before the East African Agricultural Corporation.

Of course, although the East African Agricultural Corporation is large, its external export relies on the Heixinggen consortium’s food companies, supermarket channels, and distributors large and small throughout Europe, so the name of the East African Agricultural Corporation is rarely heard outside East Africa.

This creates some conflict with the Ministry of Agriculture’s authority, but for the current East Africa, it remains well-suited to national conditions.

The personnel of the Agricultural Corporation consist of more professional staff, and since the level of education in the Ministry of Agriculture is too low, its role in promoting East African agricultural development is less than that of the Agricultural Corporation.

"Regarding the construction of new villages, our suggestion is to open up another portion of tobacco fields. Just recently, the German government announced a tobacco monopoly, which is not favorable for tobacco profits, requiring more taxes to be paid. Therefore, to better monopolize the German market, we must lower the cost of East African tobacco products to maintain our advantage in the German region."

Bismarck promoted a new law to open source and economize for the German government, but this is a blow to the Heixinggen consortium. Tobacco taxes were already relatively high, and now with the German tobacco monopoly, more funds have to be paid for purchasing and selling licenses.

However dissatisfied, they can only hold back as the market is controlled by the German government. The German government’s power is unlike that of the Austria-Hungary Empire. In Austria-Hungary, the Heixinggen consortium can use public opinion to force the central government to compromise, but in the more centralized Germany, the Heixinggen consortium cannot achieve this.

Nevertheless, this is acceptable for East Africa, as long as East African tobacco can be sold to Germany. The consumption ability of the local East African tobacco market is not small, but it is clearly not as enticing as the German market. The primary role of local tobacco consumption is currency recovery.

"In recent years, countries have raised tariffs, especially on steel and agricultural imports. As a steel importing country, we need not worry, but the significant increase in agricultural tariffs by various nations is our greatest challenge."

Ernst said: "The consumption of grain still needs to rely on domestic supply. Now, the development of the inland areas requires a substantial amount of grain at the base. While increasing the inland population, we need to intensify this year’s recruitment of inland slaves to build roads, waterworks, and other infrastructure projects in newly added regions. Meanwhile, I plan to develop a batch of mines along the Zimbabwe railway line, which will also consume a portion of the grain."

Fear not grain overproduction; when excessive, engage in engineering projects. Such things can never be completely finished. There remains a vast expanse of undeveloped land in the inland areas that require manpower, and development needs food rations. Thus, the extra grain can be consumed.

As for using the surplus grain to improve the living standards of East African residents, haha, think again! To put it bluntly, this indeed is not beneficial for East African people’s struggle. Although East Africa is competitive, it is not as competitive as other countries. Offering some welfare to its people would truly make them complacent.

The most typical example is Argentina in a previous life. The people were only keen to receive benefits peacefully, and politicians used this as a campaign tool. No one focused on work or construction. But since Argentina was not developed, that welfare policy could only be sustained by borrowing, without industry support, finally causing a debt explosion and the country to become stagnant and lifeless.

Of course, this is an exaggerated and one-sided view. Argentina has too many national issues. In conclusion, the Argentine government created an atmosphere not conducive to hard work, with politicians and the people playing an extremely abstract game, keeping Argentina’s broken ship afloat.

Yet Argentina indeed had conditions conducive to stagnation, with agricultural conditions better than the United States and a relatively small population. If they indeed couldn’t maintain the basic cost of living, a military government might as well come to power, allowing the game to continue again, always in a cycle. This strategy is actually the routine of all backward countries, most notably in South America and Africa.

As a new nation, East Africa’s development is pretty good. The Heixinggen royal family has no need to associate with those lowly "vermin." Taking advantage of the current chaos in the international system, there is a full opportunity to become a player on the international chessboard.

Don’t look at this era of numerous great powers, but precisely because of the many great powers, the division of interests is uneven, creating more opportunities for other countries. For example, Japan can seize the opportunity to become one of them. Why isn’t this a form of multipolarity?

East Africa’s conditions may not be top-tier, but they are better than countries like Italy and Japan, with more potential than any great power outside the United States and Russia.

"We must fully utilize the inland iron and coal resources to continue increasing East Africa’s steel production capacity, and by 1880, it should at least surpass the million-ton level."