African Entrepreneurship Record

At the comprehensive Angola agriculture report conference in 1893, Gorwystan, Minister of Agriculture of East Africa, mentioned:

”The agriculture in the Angola region can be divided into five parts: the tropical cash crop area in the north, the cereal crop area on the central plateau, the traditional livestock area in the south, the marine fishery area in the east, and the forestry resource area in the west.”

Marine fishery was one of the important pillar industries of colonial Angola, reaching its peak in the 16th century, when Angola’s fishing industry reached the peak of prosperity.

During this period, Angola’s fishing industry not only exported a large quantity of fish to Portugal but also supplied fish to other Portuguese colonies. Angola became one of the most important fishing grounds of the Portuguese colonial empire.

Of course, later with the discovery of gold and silver mines in South America, Portugal’s development focus shifted, and Angola’s marine fishery, along with agriculture, entered a period of decline, until Portuguese forces completely withdrew from Brazil, Angola and Mozambique regained attention.

However, it was too late by then, because the rise of East Africa to the east made Portugal’s reinvestment largely a waste, and of course, Portugal had long embarked on the road of decline, its investment in both places far less than during the nation’s peak power in the 16th century.

As for forestry resources, in the past, Angola’s forest area ranked second in Africa, only behind Congo Gold.

”During the Portuguese colonial period, Angola mainly cultivated crops such as corn, sugarcane, sweet potatoes, peanuts, and cotton, and some European crops such as grapes, olives, and spices (spices were mainly introduced by the Dutch in the 17th century). They also introduced animal husbandry, raising cattle, sheep, and horses, providing meat and other animal products. In addition, the Portuguese also cultivated a large amount of land to grow commercial crops like coffee and palm trees for export.”

Like Zimbabwe, Angola’s agricultural conditions are extremely favorable, the former being called ”the granary of Southern Africa,” and the latter is ”the breadbasket of Africa.”

Of course, this ”honor” was gained during the colonial eras of Portugal and the United Kingdom respectively, but after the two countries gained independence, the agricultural structures quickly collapsed, transforming from food-exporting nations to countries unable to self-sustain agriculturally. Truthfully, this is entirely reasonable.

The blunt truth is that the local natives simply do not know how to farm, or more accurately, they do not know how to manage.

After all, they surely can farm, under a century of colonialist pressure, with most of the labor on plantations and farms being Black slaves; it would be deceitful to say local people couldn’t farm because, without Black slaves farming, the white colonists’ plantations and farms couldn’t operate at all.

However, being able to farm does not solve the problems, especially in colonial regions with large-scale agricultural societies, where all key details are in the hands of white people, including seeds, fertilizers, technology, sales channels, and plantation and farm management, none of which local natives could grasp.

Not to mention, when the white people withdrew from the region, the markets originally selling to the world were artificially interrupted, presenting an unsolvable issue for the local Black people.

Furthermore, agriculture was primarily based on large plantations and farms as the basic model, a single plantation or farm could extraordinarily employ hundreds, even thousands or tens of thousands of people, while African natives, even those in the upper class, barely had the ability to manage a tribe, let alone govern it well, lacking appropriate knowledge and technology, so colonists initially constructed ”barriers” to prevent local natives from rising.

Of course, East Africa certainly would not ”empathize” with these natives, instead, it would exacerbate the exploitation, because East Africa is a more steadfast exploiter.

Gorwystan continued, ”Currently, various plantations and farms in Angola, along with fishing grounds, have basically resumed production. Meanwhile, we have newly established management agencies for pastures and forestry. According to the Ministry of Agriculture’s estimates, in the next twenty years, Angola’s total agricultural output is set to become one of the new growth points in East Africa, along with new territories like Mozambique and Orange, harnessing the abundant agricultural resources in the area, thereby becoming a new engine for East African agriculture.”

The agriculture inherited by East Africa from the Portuguese and Boer is an integrated agricultural system, fundamentally different from the previously plundered lands by East Africa.

Hence, the preliminary work of the East African government requires hardly any major alterations to the local region, typically exemplified by Orange, where the most suitable development considering latitude, terrain, vegetation, rainfall, and population, was animal husbandry.

Angola’s situation is most complex, from tropical rainforests to tropical savannas, to tropical deserts, providing Angola with the most diverse agricultural development conditions in East Africa, coupled with the Benguela current spawning the world’s first five largest natural fishing grounds, fishery resources are exceptionally abundant.

”In 1892, Angola’s agriculture had already recovered to pre-war levels, by 1893, Angola’s agriculture had grown by fifty-six percent, with the development of marine fishery resources leading the nation, second only to the Eastern Province and Central Province.”

Regarding marine fishery development, it has always been one of East Africa’s shortcomings, as a maritime power, East Africa’s marine fishery resource development rate has consistently been low, clearly shown by East Africa’s shipbuilding industry.

In the past thirty years in East Africa, newly added marine ships included less than twenty percent fishing boats, whereas inland water area fishing boats accounted for fifty-nine point fifty-six percent.

East Africa’s marine vessels primarily contributed in two categories: merchant ships and warships, with fewer warships in number but large in tonnage, while the rapid development of transport vessels provided conditions for East Africa’s industrial and agricultural exports.

The original accumulation of East Africa began with agriculture and mineral resource development, particularly tropical cash crops and gemstones, rare metals. In recent years, with the rapid expansion of East Africa’s industrial scale, exports of industrial products have been rapidly growing.

Various reasons have led to inadequate investment in marine resource development, resulting in Angola’s marine fishery resources directly ranking third in the nation.

It’s worth noting that Angola’s marine fishery under East African governance substantially inherits the marine fishery from the Portuguese rule, indicating that a colonial marine fishery previously could compare with nationwide East Africa, quite astonishing.

The astonishing aspect lies not in the success of Angola’s marine fishery, but in East Africa’s marine fishery being overly underdeveloped.

However, this underdevelopment is not caused by technological issues but by East African economic development structure, always advancing agriculture, mining, and manufacturing as three major industries, with orientation constantly pushing from the eastern coast towards inland areas, naturally overlooking the utilization and development of marine resources.

Moreover, as a major animal husbandry nation with multiple world-class lakes and rivers, East Africa’s inland fishery resources are highly developed, so East Africa’s meat supply is abundant, and, compared to other countries, East Africa has fewer excellent ports, among other comprehensive reasons, causing East Africa’s current disinterest in promoting marine fisheries.

However, this situation is bound to improve as Angola and Southwest Africa merge into East Africa, especially in Southwest Africa, which is highly reliant on marine fisheries, with the local terrain primarily tropical desert climate, inherently unsuitable for other types of agriculture development.

Angola’s southern port areas likewise resemble Southwest Africa’s situation, where the coast primarily has tropical desert climates, coupled with plenty of excellent ports well-suited for the development into large fishing ports, aside from partial military needs.