African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1448: Chapter 18: Water-Saving Agriculture 3

Next, the agricultural department also mentioned these two points.

”Our country has made great achievements in the field of agriculture, but there are also prominent issues in agricultural development.”

”Firstly, the limitation of water resources prevents the full potential of our agriculture from being realized; our country is essentially relatively lacking in water resources.” ℴℴ𝘮

Although Africa is commonly perceived as a relatively dry continent, from the paper data, East Africa’s total water resources and per capita water resources are actually not low.

Not to mention that East Africa has the second largest tropical rainforest in the world; just the water resources from Soron Lake (Tanganyika) alone are nearly 190 trillion cubic meters, second only to Lake Baikal and the Great Lakes of the United States.

This single lake gives East Africa water resources that surpass most countries in the world; for example, the Far East Empire has a total national water resource of just over 20 trillion cubic meters, which is less than the water volume of a lake in East Africa.

Not to mention Soron Lake (Tanganyika), even the Great Lake (Lake Victoria) is enough to compare with the entire water resources of the Far East Empire.

However, it is evident that there is a significant difference between such data and reality; at least for East Africa, the actually usable water resources are less than those of the Far East Empire.

The Great Lake, Soron Lake, Lake Malawi, and other top-ranked super lakes in the world can only benefit the surrounding areas and cannot benefit the entire East Africa.

The Ministry of Agriculture pointed out: ”Our country has abundant fresh water resources, but their distribution is extremely uneven, and for most of our agricultural regions, whether rivers, lakes, or rainfall, all are relatively tight.”

”In the past, although we had built a number of water conservancy facilities, they were similarly constrained by scale, technology, and natural conditions, unable to fully address some regional agricultural water shortages in our country.”

”Especially in the southern part of our country, south of the Zambezi River, the competition for industrial and agricultural water use is fierce and intense; similar issues exist elsewhere as well, such as the central East African Plateau, the Northeast Empire, and other densely populated or relatively developed agricultural areas.”

”This makes the condition of water resources even tighter in many high-quality grain-producing areas.”

The high-quality grain-producing areas mentioned by the Ministry of Agriculture mainly refer to productivity and quality; the distribution of East Africa’s high-quality land can be said to be surrounding the Congo rainforest, the further from the rainforest, the higher the soil nutrients while the soil’s acidity and alkalinity are more balanced.”

For example, in the western part of East Africa’s Great Lakes Region, due to the acidic soil, choosing rice as the grain crop is more suitable, and the soil’s acidity is also somewhat related to rainfall.

For instance, in the Far East Empire, the region with acidic soil is its south, where rainfall is abundant, while its north corresponds to the alkaline soil distribution area, where rainfall is scarce.

The soil distribution in East Africa is similar; the closer to the Congo rainforest, the more acidic the soil is, which is unfavorable for grain crop production.

The Great Lakes Region can become East Africa’s rice-growing base because rice can adapt to the slightly acidic soil.

Neutral soil has the highest fertilizer utilization rate, and the distribution of neutral soil in East Africa is mainly in the south and other areas, primarily located in tropical savanna climate areas, where the overall rainfall is relatively low.

The Ministry of Agriculture stated: ”Although we have built numerous water conservancy facilities, significantly improving water resource utilization efficiency, in specific situations, the utilization of fresh water resources in our country’s agriculture still exhibits rough characteristics.”

”Moreover, our country’s rainfall itself is unstable, and in periods of climate anomalies, even with the aid of reservoirs and other water infrastructure, the problem might not be solved.”

”Therefore, it is necessary to promote water-saving agriculture in areas with severe water shortages or climates that are relatively complicated and variable to ensure during emergencies, our agriculture can already function normally and stably.”