An important factor limiting agricultural development in East Africa is the issue of soil fertility. It's not that East Africa lacks relatively fertile land—for example, the volcanic ash soil distribution zone in the northern East African Plateau (mainly Kenya), the Great Lakes Region with its abundant water and soil resources, and the black soil belts in Mozambique, and so on.
But relatively barren land is also quite widespread in East Africa, especially in tropical rainforest and desert areas, so raising soil fertility all the more requires the participation of the chemical fertilizer industry.
Fortunately, during the First Five-Year Plan, East Africa's framework for pesticide and fertilizer industries had basically been put in place, and during the Second Five-Year Plan, the chemical industry, as the weak link in East Africa's basic industries, will receive much stronger support.
