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Cash Crop Farming: Meaning, Advantages, and Disadvantages

In cash crop farming, crops are grown for the purpose of sale or to earn profits. This Gardenerdy article gives you an understanding of this type of farming, along with its advantages and disadvantages.

Cash Crop Farming: Meaning, Advantages, and Disadvantages

Did You Know?

In 1973, American inventor, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin that contributed a great deal to the success of cotton as a cash crop.

What is Cash Crop Farming?

Cash crop farming refers to a type of farming where agricultural crops are grown for the purpose of sale or to make profits, instead of subsistence or barter. It is also called commercial farming or cash cropping.

In simpler words, cash crop farming is done by farmers to earn money in return for sustenance or to meet the family’s requirements. Also, an additional profit would be required for the next crop-related activity. That is, farmers have to borrow money from banks to purchase seeds for planting. Then, depending on the rise in market prices, they sell the harvested crops. In this way, they are able to repay their loans only after the sale of their crops.

The farming techniques used vary with each farmer as well as from one country to another. That is, traditional farmers in developing countries employ farming techniques that they are accustomed to. In the more developed countries, intensive cultivation and mechanized farming techniques are commonly used.

It has been observed that in the earlier times, cash crops were a small but critical part of the total production of a farm. Now, mostly in developed countries, the purpose of growing cash crops is earning revenue.

Furthermore, the price of cash crops depends on the supply and demand in more developed countries, the least developed countries being the suppliers.

Cash crop costs are majorly determined by the commodity markets with a global scope. However, there would be some fluctuations depending on the freight prices and local demand and supply.

The climate is a factor that decides the growth of cash crops. That is, the growth of cereals, fruit trees, and potatoes is supported by temperate climatic conditions, whereas rice, soybean, etc., come from a subtropical climate and sugarcane, cocoa, etc., from a tropical climate.

► Cash crop farming is considered as an accurate method that has proven to raise affordable food in high quantities.

► It is profitable to the farmers and serves as a source of their sustenance.

► It gives employment where cash crops can be processed and promotes economic diversification.

► It earns revenue for the government.

Disadvantages

► Moreover, the continuous use of monocropping has been linked to soil degradation or decline in the soil quality, which further leads to the growth of pests and disease-causing pathogens. The outcome of this could also be mass starvation caused due to the extensive destruction of a particular crop.

► Cash crop farming may prove beneficial only to those farmers who have food security and access to other necessary inputs and income, whereas small farmers may face constraints.

Examples of Cash Crops

► Wheat, rye, corn, oats, barley, rapeseed, mustard, potatoes, rice, millet, apples, oranges, cherries, coffee, cotton, strawberries, raspberries, soy beans, tea, etc., are some common examples of cash crops.

► A well-known global cash crop is coconut and it is grown in over 80 countries having a climate suitable for its growth. Coconut and its derivatives are widely used in cooking, and in making soaps and cosmetics.

► Jatropha curcas is an example of a cash crop. It is used for the production of biofuel.

► Black market cash crops like coca, cannabis, and opium poppies are also produced.

Cash Crop Farming Vs. Subsistence Farming

► Subsistence farming differs from cash crop farming as cash crops are grown mainly for direct selling and profit-making. In subsistence farming, just enough crops are grown by the farmers for consumption by them and their families, thus, providing them with the basic needs.

► Cash crop farming usually involves monocropping (growing a single crop), while subsistence farming involves the multiple cropping or mixed cropping practice.

► Cash crop farming is quite common in developed countries whereas subsistence farming is relatively less common.

► In cash crop farming, planning and management need to be done carefully and with skill, so that there is high production at a price that is affordable to the customers as well as pays for production and helps generate profits. This is not the case with subsistence farming.

Thus, we see that subsistence farming and cash crop farming differ in the basic purpose with which they are practiced. While the former is meant to serve the farmers, their families, and livestock, the latter is meant to earn profits. Promoting the growth of cash crops can help boost the economy, but it does discourage growing crops meant for domestic consumption. Cash crop farming is beneficial for those who have large farms and can afford expensive equipment and fertilizers. However, it is not helpful for farmers with small plots.

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Agriculture in India

Cash crops: production and marketing | agriculture.

In agriculture, a cash crop is a crop which is grown for money. The term is used to differentiate from subsistence crops, which are those fed to the producer’s own livestock or grown as food for the producer’s family.

In earlier times cash crops were usually only a small (but vital) part of a farm’s total yield, while today, especially in the developed countries, almost all crops are mainly grown for cash. In non-developed nations, cash crops are usually crops which attract demand in more developed nations, and hence have some export value.

In many tropical and subtropical areas, Arecanut, Betelnut, Cardamom, Pepper, coffee, cocoa, sugarcane, bananas, oranges and cotton are common cash crops. In cooler areas, grain crops, oil-yielding crops and some vegetables predominate an example of this is the United States, where corn, wheat, cannabis and soybeans are the predominant cash crops. In the 1600s, tobacco became a cash crop.

Prices for major cash crops are set in commodity markets with global scope, with some local variation (called basis) based on freight costs and local supply and demand balance. A consequence of this is that a nation, region, or individual producer relying on such a crop may suffer low prices should a bumper crop elsewhere lead to excess supply on the global markets. This system is criticized by traditional farmers. Coffee is a major part of this. Issues involving subsidies and trade barriers on such crops have become controversial in discussions of globalization.

Many developing nations take the position that the current international trade system is unfair because it has caused tariffs to be lowered in industrial goods while allowing for high tariffs and agricultural subsidies for agricultural goods. This makes it difficult for a developing nation to export its goods overseas, and forces developing nations to compete with imported goods which are exported from developed nations at artificially low prices.

The practice of exporting at artificially low prices is known as dumping, and is illegal in most nations. Controversy over this issue led to the collapse of the Cancun trade talks in 2003, when the Group of 22 refused to consider agenda items proposed by the European Union unless the issue of agricultural subsidies were addressed.

Agribusiness, with its high capital-investment and industrial-scale agricultural practices, very often skews production towards cash crops and away from anything that is consumed locally or which cannot be preserved, shipped and sold abroad.

When used in conjunction with practices which seek to maximize crop yield and which favor monoculture, increasing reliance on cash crops is seen by some to have adverse, long term environmental consequences. The prevalence of cash crops also makes ethical consumerism difficult, as production practices cannot easily be determined and removed.

How much land do you need to produce cash crops? In part, this will depend upon what you want to do.

There are three different sizes of land that can be used:

i. Less than 1 acre;

ii. 1 to 2 acres; and

iii. 6 to 20 acres.

The size of your garden determines what your best crops will be in order to produce the most cash. For example – if you have one acre or less, you won’t want to try growing apple and peach trees. You need more space for fruit trees. Instead, focus on crops like asparagus, strawberries, raspberries, herbs and other similar crops that can produce large amounts in small spaces.

The other important factor is the type of soil in your area. Most crops require certain kinds of soil to produce the highest yield and the best quality. The good news is that you can improve your soil by using fertilizers. Most of customers will prefer “organically grown” produce. Since most “store bought” produce is usually laced with some kind of chemical, featuring organically grown crops can assure you of increased sales. There’s always a market for health oriented produce.

A great way to improve your soil is by composting. Composting turn’s leaves, grass clippings, scrap food, and other organic material into a rich soil. There are both long and short procedures for producing compost.

Here’s how:

Pick a spot for a compost pile (4 x 4 or 6 x 6 feet) and begin by putting down a 4 to 5 inch layer of leaves or grass clippings. Cover with an inch or so of dirt and a shovel-full or two of manure. Then start another layer of organic matter. Continue in this manner until the pile is 3 or 4 feet high. You can sprinkle each layer lightly with water. If you like, you can construct an enclosed wire “box” for this compost pile.

If you want to use the protracted method for composting, simply let the pile “cook” for about 9 months. If you want a “faster” compost wait 8 to 9 days then mix the pile. Then wait 3 or 4 days and mix again. Do this until the pile has-turned into a rich soil-like mixture. This compost can then be worked into your oil.

The purpose of composting is to develop heat and moisture within the pile. This will cause the organic matter to decompose into components that are usable by the plants. It will produce a lot of nitrogen-rich material as well as material rich loaded with minerals.

You may need to add a cup of lime or bone meal between the layers of the pile to make an even better compost. You should have your soil tested to determine its acid, nitrogen, and mineral condition, or content. You’ll en be able to determine what to add to the soil to correct any deficiencies.

You’ll also be able to determine what grows best in your type of soil. There are low cost soil testing kits available, or you can find local testing groups, such as your local county extension office or the agriculture department at most colleges.

Most of the small cash crop growers use a rototiller for preparing the soil. If the soil has never been used for a garden, you should have it worked up good with a tractor the first year. After that, a rototiller can do the job. Of course, if you have more than a one acre garden you may still want to save a lot of work and hire someone with a tractor to plow your soil. You should find several full time and part time farmers advertising in the classified section of your local newspaper for their tilling services.

The better prepared your soil is, the better the results will be. So take the time to find out the soil’s current condition, add plenty of fertilizing material and work the soil up in preparation for planting. Crop selection is largely a matter of preference and how you want to market your product For example, some products can easily be sold only locally while other products can be sold nationally as well as locally Herbs are examples of produce that can be sold both ways.

You don’t just plant one type of crop unless you have signed contracts to sell that crop, or have plenty of marketing experience. There are some exceptions to this rule- for example, specialized crops such as mushrooms and problems if something doesn’t produce as well as expected, or if the market becomes saturated.

Using good mulching techniques will help to eliminate weeds and lessen the amount of labor you’ll need to put into the garden. It will also keep the soil around your plants moist and produce stronger plants. Almost all successful small cash crop growers use the mulching method.

Small Fruits :

There are tremendous opportunities for part time fruit growers. Every large metropolitan area could use more fruit producers. This article will focus on the basic small fruit crops, such as blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. These fruits generally produce an excellent return on your investment.

Much of the demand is for “U-Pick” fields near larger cities. Thus, a few acres of small fruits can produce a substantial income. Except for strawberries, most of the fruit plants can keep producing for as long as 10 years, or more. Also, small fruit crops produce a high return per acre — up to $15,000 gross income per acre.

Blueberries grow on small bushes and require an acid type soil. You can get about 1,000 bushes on an acre. Many farmers argue that blueberries are the best crop for “U-Pick” operations. But blueberries take a little more care and careful adjustment of the soil acidity, and are a bit harder to grow than other berries. Yet once you have a good established stand of blueberries, they can produce an excellent income.

Grapes can be grown almost anywhere there is fertile, well-drained soil. Grapevines will last decades (up to 80 years!) and therefore, can produce a permanent income. Grapes can be used in “U-Pick” operations, and also sold via retail stores. It’s important to study the proper pruning methods for grapes. Further information can be gleaned from U.S. Government agriculture publications found in most libraries or from the U.S. Government Printing Office in Washington, DC.

Raspberries can produce quick results and will continue producing for many years. The plants are low cost to purchase and establish, have little disease problems, and usually produce large crops. Best of all, there simply aren’t enough of these delicious berries available. Thus, the demand is high and they will bring a large price per quart. You can easily propagate new plants yourself, adding to your crop each year. Raspberries require lots of sun, fertile, well-drained soil, and effective mulching.

Strawberries are also an extremely popular crop. You can easily sell all you grow either by the “U-Pick” arrangement or sell direct to the consumer. The cost to establish a strawberry patch is generally low. And yields range from 6,000 to 15,000 pounds per acre.

Here are a few tips for “U-Pick” operations:

1. Have adequate parking, signs, and portable restrooms available.

2. Send each picker into assigned rows.

3. Use reusable containers and sell by the container, instead of by the pound.

4. Have plenty of empty containers to use, and make your customers feel at home.

Some growers are also producing other types of lesser-known crops such as kiwi, guavas, and Chinese dates. But, for most people just starting in the “cash crop” business, the 4 small fruits recommended in this section are the most cost effective.

There are several different ways to make profits from flowers- selling flower bulbs, cut flowers, and flower plants. These can be sold in a variety of wholesale and retail ways. A sizable flower business can be built upon 1/2 acre or less. Thus, flowers are an excellent choice if you have very little space.

Here are a few examples of the most popular types of flowers:

1. Bulbs – canna, crocus, daffodils, gladiolus, iris, lilies, tulips.

2. Cut flowers – carnations, chrysanthemums, roses, snapdragons.

3. Live flowers – roses, violets, wildflowers, and virtually all other types of flowers.

Recently, a USDA horticulturist stated that the production of flowers is the fastest growing agriculture business today. The demand far outstrips the supply.

A great way to start making money from flowers is by building a greenhouse. You can then grow plants for selling to the many retail outlets that sell flowers in the spring. A number of people have reported that they completely paid for a $7,000 – $10,000 greenhouse in just one season using this method.

Flowers are always popular and will remain so. If you want to get into this business, you must become knowledgeable. And, more importantly, you must have or develop a love for flowers.

Herb crops can be divided into three primary groupings.

There are some herbs that may fit into more than one of the following categories:

1. Culinary herbs – used for flavorings, or as food.

2. Fragrant herbs – used for scents, potpourris, and sachets.

3. Medicinal – herbs used for as herbal remedies.

Herbs are continually becoming more in demand. The demand outstrips the current domestic supply, thus there is plenty of opportunity for growing and selling herbs. It’s a pleasant business that costs little to start, takes little space and can produce a substantial income. One of the best things about herbs is that you can produce a fair amount of income per acre. Some growers produce as much as $12,000 – $15,000 per acre.

Another important fact is that almost all areas of the United States are suitable for growing some type of herbs. Most herb crops can begin producing incomes in the same year they are planted. Therefore, you can plan a herb crop this winter and reap the profits next fall!

You can find sources for herb plants and seeds by looking through the various gardening and farming magazines. Publications like, The Mother Earth News, Fine Gardening, Harrowsmith and Organic Gardening contain many ads for herb suppliers. Look in both the classified and display ad sections.

Herbs can be sold in a wide variety of ways:

1. Direct to the customer as plants.

2. Direct to the customer as a finished product.

3. Wholesaling to retail stores.

4. Wholesaling to bulk herb buyers.

5. Wholesaling to arts and crafts people who use the herbs in other products.

6. Fresh herbs to restaurants.

If you wish to become involved in growing herbs for profit, the first thing to do is to educate yourself about the different herbs. You’ll discover that some herbs take special growing conditions to flourish. Then devise a plan to detail what herbs you will grow and how you’ll market them.

Here are a few examples of some popular herbs from the three classes listed earlier:

1. Culinary herbs – Basil, sage, chives, dill, parsley, savory, rosemary, thyme.

2. Fragrant herbs – mints, tansy, clove, rue, thyme, rosemary, chamomile.

3. Medicinal herbs – borage, catnip, ginseng, gold seal, lobelia, pennyroyal, valerian.

Most successful herb growers plant a variety of herbs. They also use several different marketing techniques, such as- direct to the consumer, selling herb plants to other growers, and selling to restaurants. Dried herbs can also be sold by mail order. A few herb growers concentrate on one or two varieties for which there is a big demand. Examples include – peppermint and catnip. Usually, they already have contracts for selling the product to large wholesalers or companies that use the herbs in their products.

Vegetable s:

Fresh, home grown vegetables is a constant in-demand product. You can often beat the large supermarket chain on prices, and always on product quality. You can even become a supplier to small grocery stores. But most of your profits will come from direct retail sales to consumers who are looking for “farm fresh, chemical free” produce.

There are literally dozens of different vegetable crops you can grow. You pick 8 or 10 of the most popular vegetables. Using intensive gardening techniques can greatly increase the amount produced per acre. Some growers have reported incomes of up to $20,000 per acre.

These are a few of the most popular vegetables:

1. Asparagus – yields up to 2,000 pounds per acre at $2 per pound. Plants are started as roots and are ready to use in about 3 years. And will continue producing for up to 20 years.

2. Beans – always one of the most popular crops, and come in many easy-to-grow varieties. Beans will produce several crops each growing season.

3. Brussels Sprouts – relatively easy to grow and can produce late into the year, even after a frost.

4. Carrots – requires lots of loose fertile soil. There is a strong demand for “baby carrots.”

5. Corn – one of the most popular fresh picked vegetables, although it does have a slightly lower profitability per acre.

6. Lettuce – a quick and easy-to-grow vegetable. You should grow several different varieties, and it can be planted very early.

7. Peppers – both the mild and hot varieties. Peppers need a long warm growing season and well-drained soil. Other popular items include okra, onions, peas, radishes, spinach, squash, tomatoes, watermelon, and eggplant.

Vegetables can be marketed in a variety of ways. There are even many “U-Pick” vegetable operations. However, by far the best way to sell vegetables is by operating a small roadside stand, or at an established farmer’s market. Most communities have a farmer’s market operating on weekends.

There’s a booming market for organically grown vegetables. And that market will continue. Chemical free produce will always bring you premium prices. Organically grown vegetables take a little more soil preparation and effort, but they can be well worth the extra effort.

Other ways to market vegetables are- directly to restaurants, local stores, and to food co-ops. The key to all of these marketing efforts is to have a high quality, chemical free products.

Specialty Crops :

This article will briefly cover other special cash crops. Some of these crops can only be grown in certain section of the countries. Also, some must have special growing conditions.

I. Landscaping Plants :

Special plants for landscaping are always in demand. These plants include shrubs such as – rhododendron, azaleas and juniper, as well as some decorative trees. Landscaping plants can be sold directly to the consumer or to landscaping companies. If you begin supplying a landscape company or retail outlets with good stock, you’ll soon have a steady source of income. A couple of important things to know about landscape plants are that they must be attractive and have a good survival rate. And you probably need to give some sort of guarantee that the plants are free from disease.

II. Nut Crops :

Including almonds, chestnuts, filberts, pecans and walnuts. You can expect a wait of from 3 to 20 years for nut production. But some growers also produce and sell various aged nut trees for replanting. Nice two and three old trees will bring a premium price. Since nut tree crops require a long time to mature, some growers use a dual method … they plant a raspberry crop between the nut trees.

It takes about 8 to 10 years to get nut trees into nut production. But, after they have produced crops, they can also be used for valuable lumber production in 30 years or so. Nut trees could make an excellent retirement crop if you plant them while you’re young. Some arrow-straight walnut trees, black walnut specifically, have brought as much as $10,000 each!

III. Bamboo :

This crop is grown for its edible shoots, and can produce 3 to 10 tons per acre. Bamboo is also used for a wide variety of construction items, including furniture. Currently, U.S. growers cannot keep up with the demand, so bamboo is being imported from Asia.

i. Dried Plants:

Are used for decoration and fragrance. Dried floral arrangements are especially popular. Many arts and craft shops, gift stores and specialty shops need a constant supply of dried flowers. There are two steps involved in producing these crops. First you must produce an attractive, quality plant. Next, you must have used the proper drying techniques to preserve the plants while maintaining its looks.

ii. Mushrooms:

Have become a very popular specialty food in fancy restaurants. The Shitake mushroom is specially adapted for production by small family farms. It can be harvested during the spring and fall. And it has both a meaty taste and medicinal properties. These mushrooms are usually grown outdoors on 6 to 8 foot logs.

The logs are prepared and then inoculated with the mushroom spores. Then it’s a 6 to 8 month wait for the first crop. A few growers have developed indoor growing techniques which result in a shorter growing season.

iii. Oyster Mushrooms:

Is another variety that is fast becoming popular. These mushrooms are fast growing and produce high yields. They can be grown on easily available material, such as wheat straw. The largest market for specialty mushrooms are restaurants, food co-ops, grocers and health food stores. You can enjoy a year round booming market for dried Shitake mushrooms.

IV. Seeds :

Many small growers are supplying the large seed companies with special crop seed. These include flower seeds, wildflowers seeds and hard-to-find vegetables. Some small producers occasionally sell directly to the consumer.

V. Sprouts :

Growing sprouts can be ideal for those who have very little space. Fresh sprouts can be supplied to major grocery stores as well as to restaurants and health food stores.

Marketing Techniques :

There are a variety of selling techniques that can be used get cash from your crops. Some producers use several of the methods at the same time. Several things can help make your marketing efforts easier. The first is quality. You want to produce the best product possible. Your product’s good, clean, healthy appearance will impress buyers. Sub-par products will be hard to sell.

The way to produce quality is by proper initial soil preparation, using good seeds and by adhering to accepted growing methods. There many plants that act as natural atnip, marigolds, nasturtiums, savory, garlic, horseradish, tansy, and thyme.

An important marketing consideration is timing. If you can get a crop ready when other producers aren’t, sales will be easy. This can be done by using greenhouses, planting early, using hotbeds and, of course, good planning. Pricing is also important.

Most sellers recommend that you price your products 10% to 20% below those in grocery stores. (But don’t lock yourself into a price war by trying to undercut your competition from other small producers.) Products that are grown using organic methods will most often bring higher prices. Check will all the local retail stores and at farmers markets to get a feel for your local current selling rates.

One of the most common marketing techniques is selling your wares at roadside stands. Two of the most important factors to consider before setting up your stand are signs and ample parking space. Your signs should be no longer than 6 to 8 words, neat, legible and easy to understand. Signs need to be placed far enough ahead of your stand to give the customer time to pull into your parking area.

Next, you want your stand to be well organized and neat in appearance. Make it easy for the customer to see the product and prices. Neatness and cleanliness will pay off. Combined with quality products and good prices, you’ll enjoy a lot of free advertising by “word of mouth.” A variation of the roadside stand is to sell from the back of your pickup truck or car. You’ll need to locate a well-traveled road and a spot with parking that doesn’t interfere with anyone.

Another common selling method is at farmer’s markets and flea markets. These gatherings are held in most localities. If not, you’ll want to get together with other producers and organize a farmer’s market. All of these methods can also be aided by advertising in local newspapers, “penny saver” papers, radio stations, and by posting notices on bulletin boards.

Selling directly to retail grocery stores and restaurants is another good procedure. If you can provide them with a steady supply of fresh produce, sales should be easy. When contacting these stores be prepared to offer a 30% to 40% discount from regular retail prices. This allows the retailer a good profit margin. If you are a reliable producer, you may be able to set up a weekly route to service several retail locations.

There are many food co-ops that are eager to buy large quantities of quality produce. You’ll need to offer reasonable discounts. Too, you’ll want to scout out these local co-ops and contact them directly. For some products you may have to prepare neat individualized packages of produce. Example – 1 or 2 ounces of herbs in labeled, plastic bags.

This marketing method will work for almost any product. However, it does present some special problems. Example – you cannot let very young kids into the picking areas as they may get hurt and/or damage some crops. In order to operate a successful U-Pick operation, you’ll need to get along well with people. You also need to be friendly, courteous and treat everyone as if they are individually important which, of course, they are.

Getting Help :

There’s a variety of ways to get help with gardening and marketing your products. Almost every state offers free agriculture help through universities and state agriculture offices. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also offers many free programs. Local bookstores, newsstands, and libraries also contain many informative sources.

Study these diligently and become skillful in gardening. Finally, you’ll be able to find many newsletters and growers associations advertised in the gardening magazines. These are often your best sources for plants, seeds, growing techniques, and marketing strategies.

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Agriculture , Crops , Cash Crops , Production of Cash Crops

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  • Biology Article

What are Crops?

Crops are plants grown by the farmers. Agriculture plays a very important role in the Indian economy. It is the backbone of our country. 70% of the Indian population depends on agriculture for food and money. It is the major occupation in the rural areas. The cultivation of crops depends primarily on the weather and soil conditions.

cash crops essay

Types of Crops

The crops are of the following types depending upon the season in which they are grown:

Kharif Crops

The crops which are grown in the monsoon season are known as Kharif crops. For eg., maize, millet, and cotton.

The seeds are sown at the beginning of monsoon season and harvested at the end of the monsoon season.

Such crops require a lot of water and hot weather for proper growth.

The name “Rabi” means “spring” – a word derived from Arabic.

The crops that are grown in the winter season and harvested in the spring are called Rabi crops.

Wheat, gram, and mustard are some of the Rabi crops.

Various agricultural practices are carried out to produce new crop varieties.

Such crops require a warm climate for the germination and maturation of seeds. They, however, require a cold climate for their growth.

Such crops are grown between the Kharif and Rabi seasons, i.e., between March and June.

These crops mature early.

Cucumber, pumpkin, bitter gourd, and watermelon are zaid crops.

Also Read: Bt crops

Factors Affecting Crop Production

The factors affecting the production of crops include:

Internal or Genetic Factors

The genetic makeup decides crop growth and production. Breeders incorporate maximum desirable characters in the crops to obtain a new hybrid variety. The desirable characters include:

Early maturity

High yielding ability

Resistance to drought, flood, and salinity

Tolerance to insect and diseases

Resistance to lodging

The chemical composition of grains

Quality of grains and straw

These characters are transmitted from one generation to another.

External or Environmental Factors

The external factors include:

Socio-economic

Climatic Factors

The climatic factors that affect crop production include:

Precipitation

Temperature

Atmospheric Humidity

Solar radiation

Wind Velocity

Atmospheric Gases

Edaphic Factors

The growth of the plants depends upon the type of soil on which they are grown. These are known as edaphic factors and include the following:

Soil Moisture

Soil Temperature

Soil Mineral Matter

Soil Organic Matter

Soil Organisms

Soil Reactions

Biotic Factors

Plants and animals are biotic factors that affect crop production. Even pests impact crop production, often with negative implications.

Socio-economic Factors

The number of human resources available for cultivation.

The inclination of society towards cultivation.

Appropriate choice of crops.

Breeding varieties for increased yield or pest resistance by human inventions.

A cash crop is the one that is cultivated to be sold in the market to earn profits from the sale.

Most of the crops grown today worldwide are cash crops cultivated for selling in the national and international markets.

Most of the cash crops grown in the developing nations are sold to the developed nations for a better price.

Well-known cash crops include coffee, tea, cocoa, cotton, and sugarcane.

The crops that are grown to feed the human population are known as food crops. There are a number of food crops grown in the country.

Rice: It is the staple food crop in a majority of regions in the country. Rice is a Kharif crop that requires high temperature, heavy rainfall and high humidity for proper growth. The areas with less rainfall use irrigation for rice cultivation.

Wheat:  It is the most important cereal crop in the north and north-western parts of the country. It is a rabi crop that requires 50-75 cm of annual rainfall.

Millets:  The important millets grown in the country include jowar, bajra and ragi. They are highly nutritious and are known as coarse grains. It grows in the regions which experience rainfall throughout the year.

Maize:  This Kharif crop is used as both food and fodder. It grows well in alluvial soil.

Pulses:  India is the largest consumer and producer of pulses in the world. Pulses can survive even in dry conditions. These are leguminous crops and help in improving soil fertility by fixing atmospheric nitrogen.

The human population depends upon crops for their food production . Therefore, the crops should be cultivated using proper production techniques and agriculture implements.

Also Read:  Food Crops

For more details on Crops and related topics, visit the  BYJU’S Biology website or download the BYJU’S app for further reference.

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cash crops essay

Thank you very much, I real lent more things about crop

What are the examples of cash crops

Cocoa, sugarcane, coffee, tea, spices are a few examples of cash crops.

Coffee, tea, cocoa, cotton, and sugarcane.

what are the types of crops?

Based on the seasons, crops can be classified into Kharif, Rabi and Zaid.

What is Zaid Crop? And why does it work

What is the meaning of staple food as it is mentioned in rice crop.

Staple food is referred to the food item, which constitutes the major portion of the daily intake and accounts for the large fraction of daily energy and nutrient supply.

Very nice and good explanation

Pls what are series crops with examples

What are the types of field crops

A field crop is a crop that is grown for agricultural purpose such as cotton, wheat, rice, corn, etc. They are grown on a large scale for consumption in a cultivated field.

cash crops essay

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Cash crops in developing countries: The issues, the facts, the policies

Profile image of Simon Maxwell

1989, World Development

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Baba Sillah

As more than 2.5 billion people in poor countries live directly from the agriculture sector reports of 491 land deals covering a staggering number of 30 million hectares across 78 countries deserve significant attention. This article examines how Industrial Cash Crops (ICs) undermine food security in developing countries through land grab, causing depeasantization and disappearing crop diversity. By using three previous research on Ghana, Ethiopia and Indonesia the complexities involving land dispossession, cash crop monoculture, dependency on the market for food, and livelihood crises are brought into focus. Analyses show reasonable linkage between cash cropsii and food insecurity. Subsistence farmers are shown to have more food stability, greater control over land use than cash crops farmers although cash crops farmers have higher gross incomes than subsistence farmers. Accumulation by dispossession is employed to contextualize the analyses in the Neo-liberal framework of land grab. This article forms linkages between cash crop, land grab, depeasantization and disappearing food diversity with keen attention on the penchant for increased productivity and profit maximization as the overarching force driving land grab.

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Cash-cropping and Economic Growth in Africa

For many African states, cash cropping is a major livelihood and prime source of income. Despite this importance, the industry has not achieved long term growth in a number of African economies. Many cash cropping contexts have succeeded and grown rapidly in the past, but a multitude of these, such as starch exports, have since slowed down or completely died out.

In examining why many African economies did not achieve long term growth in the cash cropping sector, first we need to determine what constitutes long term growth, and why cash cropping did not achieve it. This will be determined in the first section. Subsequently, the essay will determine that a lack of capital and capital accumulation is a stumbling block for growth in the cash-cropping sector and in African economies; this essay will then argue that much of the colonial era’s crop demand and success was transient due to demands by colonial states and world events. Finally, this essay will argue that African states have not properly developed the sector, due to a lack of will and a lack of capacity.

This essay will ultimately find that cash-cropping failed to achieve long term growth in African economies due to the transient nature of crop export success. A particular crop typically requires dedication to perfect but its success is short-lived and reliant on world market demand.

Economic growth is seen as a general expansion of the goods and services that a nation produces, with long-term growth being a sustained rise in this quantity. [1] To achieve long-term growth, African economies need to raise their output of goods and services over a long period of time. While cash-cropping succeeded in some contexts within a short length of time, this was subsequently followed by stagnation or a destruction of the industry. Chien (2015) argues that technology is a prime driver of economic growth. [2] While there is an effort to modernise in many African states, studies have shown that spending on agricultural development (in particular) is still too low. [3] Many of these studies suggest that to become globally competitive and productive, African states need to shift to a capital-intensive approach in the form of fertilisers, equipment and irrigation technology. [4] This is easier said than done. As the next section will argue, there is insufficient public or private capital to invest in the sector.

African cash-cropping needs to become capital intensive, but there simply isn’t enough capital. This also affects the rest of the economy, as a lack of capital results in a lack of local investment, that then holds back economic growth. Palm oil production in Nigeria has always been, and continues to be, highly labour intensive, with little attempts to shift towards capital intensification. [5] A lack of cash income, Martin argues, resulted in a lack of innovation in technology. [6] Money that was made was used for other reasons, as physical assets such as machinery were an inconvenience in matters of inheritance. [7] As a result, innovation was seen in the division of labour and not in capital. Investment was primarily in increasing the labour force, through marriage or through employment. [8] Capital was not used or accumulated due to a lack of it and the need to spend what was made on imports or politics. Nigeria, even today, faces a problem, as capital is needed to invest in the crop sector but there isn’t enough capital. [9]

In the case of cassava in the same region, machinery was invested in to increase productivity. [10] The inflexibility of capital innovation did, however, raise the level of distrust towards the system, as cassava production was ended by imperial decree due to its infringement on palm oil production. [11] While some capital was used to invest in these industries, the transient nature of crops did not endear producers to the idea of heavily investing in one crop. The problem with this sentiment, however, is that capital intensity is needed to increase production so that extra capital can be attained to invest in the next crop trend.

Trade in particular crops and the success of their growth never lasts forever. Crops continue to have relative demand over long periods, but market fluctuations due to varying demand has a major effect on the success of African producers. While schemes such as the 1947 Tanganyika Groundnut scheme failed as a result of sheer incompetence on the part of the organisers, many other cases of cash-cropping failures can be blamed on the transient nature of the industry. [12] Agriculture is a harsh industry. Even if the crop doesn’t fail, there is no guarantee that a producer will be able to sell their goods at a reasonable price or even at all. Due to this, farmers are often terrified of new crops or uncertainty. Risk is something they cannot afford. Shifts to new crops in Africa during colonialism can be seen as a result of coercion or major incentive, eliminating stagnation from uncertainty.

Cotton in Portuguese Mozambique and Angola are examples of the use of coercion to encourage a new crop. State intervention saw the encouraging of cotton production through force. [13] Prohibition on peasants selling non-cotton produce, designation of labour and forced use of land was not enough to make cotton successful, however. [14] Pitcher (1991) argues that legislation from the 1800s to 1900s, in fact, had nothing to do with the rising success of cotton production in the region. [15] The industry owes all its temporary success to the American Civil War, that resulted in a global cotton shortage, creating an opportunity for Portuguese colonial cotton. [16] When the Civil War ended, cotton sunk into a slump once again. Only the drastically draconian system of Estada Novo worked, to a degree, by guaranteeing prices and forcing peasant production. [17] The system itself, however, can be argued to have contributed to the violent upheaval that ended colonialism in Mozambique. Without mass coercion and without global opportunity, Mozambique was not able to outcompete global competitors.

The global demand for rubber during the World Wars was supplied by many African regions. [18] The end of the wars and the invention of rubber substitutes put an end to much of this demand. Those who had invested in the industry would have begun to make less income than they had predicted, highlighting further why African producers didn’t invest in technology. Machinery is suited for a singular crop. If that crop is no longer popular, then it becomes a wasted investment. With capital as scarce as it is, African producers would rather invest in crop diversification or extra labour. Even prior to the end of both World Wars, rubber production in the Congo was ended, due to unprofitability as labour costs became too much. [19] Capital investment could have changed this, lowering the need for and cost of labour. But as has been dealt with, capital was not available to invest in this industry, especially with fear of its transience.

Some trends in cash crops are artificially generated and stopped. An example of this is the case of cassava starch production in Nigeria. The need for starch during World War 2 saw the imperial government encourage starch production in Nigeria. [20] London was clear that the trade in starch would be transient. [21] After some initial failures, Nigeria eventually became a reliable source of starch. [22] Many producers shifted to growing cassava and producing starch, especially if they had become disillusioned by cocoa or palm oil production. [23] In April 1943, however, the Nigerian colonial government abolished the export of starch, despite its heavy inclusion in the economy. [24] The imperial government needed palm products, and starch had become too profitable, and had shifted too much labour from the palm industry. [25] In this way, the global demand for starch was generated by government demand with little private demand, and then ended through state decree despite local production and any existing private demand. Cassava trade was transient, and relying on it would have caused many producers to become impoverished after its export ban. [26]

Despite these few examples of cash-crop failures, there are some success stories. In contemporary Rwanda, bananas have become a major export with good resale value. They do not detract from food crops and complement other growing industries such as banana wine production. Cotton income in Mali and Burkina Faso has been reinvested in other crops, diversifying and avoiding risk. [27] Cocoa in Ghana is also a relative success story, with production growing from 450 000 tonnes in 2000 to 900 000 in 2010. [28] These examples show that there is room for success for cash-cropping in Africa, despite challenges. One just needs to produce and invest wisely in crops that can complement and grow local industries.

Many African states lack the necessary capacity to grow their crop sector. Even during the colonial era, transport was a crucial aspect to cultivation. [29] Today, only areas which exist alongside natural transport arteries or pre-existing infrastructure do well. [30] Land becoming scarcer alongside these arteries and infrastructure has resulted in a myriad of producers being in inopportune regions. [31] A lack of arable land and a lack of labour has also put the industry under strain. [32] Population growth would help the labour shortage, but a need for abodes continues to eliminate available land. [33] The traditional system of shifting cultivation has been put under strain due to labour shortages and a lack of arable land. [34] Fertilisers would solve this issue, but there is often not enough capital to invest. By and large, the African agricultural sector is underfunded. [35] This is caused by and exacerbates a lack of private and public agrarian capital, leading to a lack of much needed assets such as infrastructure, equipment, irrigation and fertiliser. [36] Many states cannot invest in agriculture due to a shortage of funds, such as in Zambia, Mali and Zimbabwe. [37] Overall, the incapacity of African cash-cropping links to the earlier section of a lack of capital.

In addition to this incapacity, there is also a relative lack of willingness among African governments to invest in technology or agriculture. Kinyanjui (1993) argues that many African leaders, especially among the more authoritarian states, care more about spending on security to maintain their regime than investing in food security or the cash-crop industry. [38] In many states with harder commodities, this is to be expected. Rent-seekers can more easily make money out of unsustainable commodities such as oil or mining than slower and less capital intensive industries such as cash-cropping.

This essay has shown that cash cropping in Africa and its lack of long-term growth is a problem of transience and lack of capital. Long-term economic growth requires capital investment and a sustainable growth of production. This is not possible in a sector in which demand constantly changes, disallowing reliable investment in any one export. In contemporary consumerist society, global demand is steady enough for most cash-crops, but an incapacity due to initial capital holds back African producers’ ability to become globally competitive. In the past, market fluctuations and the transient nature of crop demand led to a boom and bust in many African contexts. There are some contemporary success stories, however, which have succeeded due to reinvestment in diversification (to mitigate risk) and growth of complementary industries. [39] Post-colonial African contexts suffer from a lack of private and public capital, preventing them from moving towards capital intensive strategies. In addition to this fiscal incapacity to develop, many African leaders do not care enough to invest in agriculture, due to apathy or a need to invest in security spending to maintain their regime.

Overall, success in African cash-cropping needs to be achieved through sound investment. Capital, public and private, will appear from somewhere. Like Mali and Burkina Faso, that capital needs to be invested in diversification, but also in fertiliser (to alleviate concerns of arable land scarcity) and other assets. While still tumultuous, global demand of cash crops is steady enough to warrant some specialisation. What is also clear, however, is that the day of the peasant farmer is long gone. Only large commercial conglomerates can absorb the risk and potential losses of such a risky export market, and in going forward, Africa will need to develop along this path.

  • Austin, Gareth. “Cash Crops and Freedom: Export Agriculture and the Decline of Slavery in Colonial West Africa.” International Review of Social History 54, 1 (2009): 1-37.
  • Cavendish, Richard. Britain Abandons the Groundnuts Scheme. Accessed August 17, 2016. http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/britain-abandons-groundnuts-scheme.
  • Chien, YiLi. What Drives Long-Run Economic Growth?, Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. Accessed August 20, 2016. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2015/june/what-drives-long-run-economic-growth.
  • Curtis, Mark. Improving African Agriculture Spending: Budget Analysis of Burundi, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya and Sierra Leone. http://www.africa-adapt.net/media/resources/888/improving-african-agriculture-spending-2.pdf .
  • Determinants of Long-Run Growth . Boundless.com. Accessed August 20, 2016. https://www.boundless.com/economics/textbooks/boundless-economics-textbook/economic-growth-20/long-run-growth-99/determinants-of-long-run-growth-371-12468.
  • Eke, I.C. and Effiong J.A.L. “The Effects of Capital Accumulation on Crop Production Output in Nigeria.” International Journal of Agriculture and Earth Science 2, no. 3 (2016): 62-81. http://iiardpub.org/ijaes/get/THE%20EFFECTS.pdf. Accessed August 16, 2016.
  • Falola, Toyin. “Cassava Starch for Export in Nigeria during the Second World War,” African Economic History , no. 18 (1989): 73-98.
  • Kinyanjui, Kabiru. “Culture, Technology and Sustainable Development in Africa.” Asian Perspective 17, no. 2 (1993): 269-295.
  • Martin, Susan. “Gender and Innovation: Farming, Cooking and Palm Processing in the Ngwa Region, South-Eastern Nigeria, 1900-1930.” The Journal of African History 25, no. 4 (1984): 411-427.
  • Neuemark, S.D. “Some Economic Development Problems of African Agriculture,” Journal of Farm Economics 41, no 1 (1959): 43-50.
  • Reardon, Thomas, Christopger B. Barrett, and Valerie Kelly . Sustainable Versus Unsustainable Agricultural Intensification in Africa: Focus on Policy Reforms and Market Conditions. Paper invited for presentation at the AAEA International Preconference on “Agricultural Intensification, Economic Development and the Environment,”July 31-August 1, 1998, Salt Lake City, Utah.
  • The sad story of Ghana’s cocoa industry and the way forward . Ghana Business News. Accessed August 20, 2016. https://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2015/06/22/the-sad-story-of-ghanas-cocoa-industry-and-the-way-forward/.
  • Tosh, John. “The Cash-Crop Revolution in Tropical Africa: An Agricultural Reappraisal,” African Affairs 79, no. 314 (1980): 79-94.

[1] Determinants of Long-Run Growth, Boundless.com, accessed August 20, 2016, https://www.boundless.com/economics/textbooks/boundless-economics-textbook/economic-growth-20/long-run-growth-99/determinants-of-long-run-growth-371-12468.

[2] YiLi Chien, What Drives Long-Run Economic Growth?, Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, accessed August 20, 2016, https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2015/june/what-drives-long-run-economic-growth.

[3] Mark Curtis, Improving African Agriculture Spending: Budget Analysis of Burundi, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya and Sierra Leone , http://www.africa-adapt.net/media/resources/888/improving-african-agriculture-spending-2.pdf , 3.

[4] Thomas Reardon et al., Sustainable Versus Unsustainable Agricultural Intensification in Africa: Focus on Policy Reforms and Market Conditions, 1998: 24.

[5] Susan Martin, “Gender and Innovation: Farming, Cooking and Palm Processing in the Ngwa Region, South-Eastern Nigeria, 1900-1930,” The Journal of African History 25, no. 4 (1984): 424.

[6] Ibid., 425.

[7] Ibid., 426.

[8] Ibid., 426.

[9] I.C. Eke and Effiong J.A.L., “The Effects of Capital Accumulation on Crop Production Output in Nigeria,” International Journal of Agriculture and Earth Science 2, no. 3 (2016): 79, http://iiardpub.org/ijaes/get/THE%20EFFECTS.pdf , accessed August 16, 2016.

[10] Toyin Falola, “Cassava Starch for Export in Nigeria during the Second World War,” African Economic History, no. 18 (1989): 75.

[11] Ibid., 92.

[12] Richard Cavendish, Britain Abandons the Groundnuts Scheme, HistoryToday, accessed August 17, 2016, http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/britain-abandons-groundnuts-scheme.

[13] M. Anne Pitcher, “Sowing the Seeds of Failure: Early Portuguese Cotton Cultivation in Angola and Mozambique,” Journal of Southern African Studies 17, no. 1 (1991): 58.

[14] Ibid., 59.

[15] Ibid., 66.

[16] Ibid., 60.

[17] Ibid., 66. African peasants didn’t want to grow cotton as they saw it as unsustainable and dangerous, in that if it wasn’t sold, the loss couldn’t be recouped through eating it.

[18] Gareth Austin, “Cash Crops and Freedom: Export Agriculture and the Decline of Slavery in Colonial West Africa,” International Review of Social History 54, 1 (2009): 2-3.

[19]  Ibid., 20.

[20] Falola, “Cassava Starch for Export in Nigeria during the Second World War,” 75.

[21] Ibid., 76.

[22] Ibid., 82.

[23] Ibid., 78.

[24] Ibid., 92.

[25] Ibid., 92.

[26] Reardon et al., Sustainable Versus Unsustainable Agricultural Intensification in Africa: Focus on Policy Reforms and Market Conditions , 19.

[27] Ibid., 20.

[28] The sad story of Ghana’s cocoa industry and the way forward, Ghana Business News, accessed August 20, 2016, https://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2015/06/22/the-sad-story-of-ghanas-cocoa-industry-and-the-way-forward/.

[29] Austin, “Cash Crops and Freedom: Export Agriculture and the Decline of Slavery in Colonial West Africa,” 3.

[30] S.D. Neuemark, “Some Economic Development Problems of African Agriculture,” Journal of Farm Economics 41, no 1 (1959): 46.

[31] Reardon et al., Sustainable Versus Unsustainable Agricultural Intensification in Africa: Focus on Policy Reforms and Market Conditions , 2.

[32] John Tosh, “The Cash-Crop Revolution in Tropical Africa: An Agricultural Reappraisal,” African Affairs 79, no. 314 (1980): 89.

[33] I.C. Eke and Effiong J.A.L., “The Effects of Capital Accumulation on Crop Production Output in Nigeria,” 64.

[34] Neuemark, “Some Economic Development Problems of African Agriculture,” 44.

[35] Ibid., 63.

[36] Reardon et al., Sustainable Versus Unsustainable Agricultural Intensification in Africa: Focus on Policy Reforms and Market Conditions , 20.

[37] Ibid., 20-22.

[38] Kabiru Kinyanjui, “Culture, Technology and Sustainable Development in Africa,” Asian Perspective 17, no. 2 (1993): 277.

[39] Economic growth must be achieved in more than one sector. Bananas as an export may collapse, but creating demand through local industry brings in more capital and ensures that local banana producers have a source of income.

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Cash Crops Essay

Africans and the creation of cash crops.

Africans were heavily involved in the creation of cash crops. Stock claims that in a significant portion of tropical Africa, small-scale peasant farmers predominated in the production of cash crops. (196). For instance, in Senegal and Northern Nigeria, groundnut farming accounted for the majority of the output of cash crops. On the other hand, coffee was grown in Belgium Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Tanganyika, Angola, and Uganda. South Western Nigeria and Gold Coast’s main cash product export was cocoa. Contrary to other crops like cocoa, cotton required a lot of work and was inexpensive. (Mulvaney 64). Under duress from Europeans, African farmers grew the crop to supply raw materials for the French textile industry. For example, Europeans made production of cotton compulsory in some parts of Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and the Central African Republic.

Challenges Faced by African Farmers

However, African farmers did not benefit much from cash-crop production. For example, most of African farmers only got less than 40% of profits from their cash crops. The majority of them also lost access to other land for food crop production (Stock 195-197). Therefore, successful production of cash-crop did not mean extensive rural prosperity. Moreover, although some African peasant farmers still grew their foodstuff, they mostly relied on imported European manufactured metals goods and cloth which undermined their industrial self-sufficiency. Notably, low-priced food-crop such as rice from French and China was imported into French West African colonies and sold at prices (Stock 196-197). In turn, they interfered with local food production.

Impact on African Development

Africans’ success in the production of cash-crops distorted African development for future years in various ways. First thing, Africans started cash-crop farming to get tax their colonies required them to pay (Stock 196). Such pressure made Africans depended on imported food crops. However, they could not afford prices required for imports and cost of exportation. As a result, they became poor. Moreover, European merchants dominated markets at the cost. Consequently, prices paid to African cash-crop producers were low. When prices of manufactured goods in Europe increased, European merchants passed the cost to African farmers (Stock 196-197). Therefore, Africans received less for what they produced and paid more for goods they imported or bought. The situations forced Africans to bring more land under cash-crop production and neglected food production (Mulvaney 64-65). The soil became increasingly exhausted and famine struck during drought. As evident, cash-crop production made Africans dependent on other continents for basic foodstuffs.

Works Cited

Mulvaney, Dustin. “Green Food: An A-to-Z Guide.” Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Pub, 2011. Print.

Stock, F. Robert. ”Africa South of the Sahara: A Geographical Interpretation.” New York: Guilford Press, 2013. Print.

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Challenges of the Peasant Communes

The pre-existing communes, which periodically redistributed land, did little to encourage improvement in technique and formed a source of power beyond the control of the Soviet government. Although the income gap between wealthy and poor farmers did grow under the NEP, it remained quite small, but the Bolsheviks began to take aim at the kulaks (Russian: fist, or tight-fisted, a pejorative term), peasants with enough land and money to own several animals and hire a few laborers. Kulaks were blamed for withholding surpluses of agricultural produce. Clearly identifying this group was difficult, though, since only about 1 percent of the peasantry employed laborers [2] [1] According to Robert Conquest, the definition of "kulak" also varied depending on who was using it. "Peasants with a couple of cows or five or six acres [~2 ha] more than their neighbors" were labeled kulaks" in Stalin's First Five Year Plan. [3]

Food shortages

The small shares of most of the peasants resulted in food shortages in the cities. [4] Although grain had nearly returned to pre-war production levels, the large estates which had produced it for urban markets had been divided up. Not interested in acquiring money to purchase overpriced manufactured goods, the peasants chose to consume their produce rather than sell it. As a result, city dwellers only saw half the grain that had been available before the war. [1] Before the revolution, peasants controlled only 2,100,000 km² divided into 16 million holdings, producing 50 percent of the food grown in Russia and consuming 60 percent of total food production. After the revolution, the peasants controlled 3,140,000 km² divided into 25 million holdings, producing 85 percent of the food, but consuming 80 percent of what they grew (meaning that they ate 68 percent of the total). [5]

Rationale for Collectivization

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union had never been happy with private agriculture and saw collectivization as the best remedy for the problem. Lenin claimed, "Small-scale production gives birth to capitalism and the bourgeoisie constantly, daily, hourly, with elemental force, and in vast proportions." [6] Apart from ideological goals, Joseph Stalin also wished to embark on a program of rapid heavy industrialization which required larger surpluses to be extracted from the agricultural sector in order to feed a growing industrial workforce and to pay for imports of machinery (by exporting grain). Social and ideological goals would also be served through the mobilization of the peasants into collectivist economic arrangements that would place them under state control. Not only was collectivization meant to fund industrialization, but it was also a way for the Bolsheviks to systematically exterminate the Kulaks, exerting control over all the peasantry in general in a back-handed manner. Stalin was incredibly suspicious of the peasants, viewing them as a major threat to socialism. Stalin's use of the collectivization process served to not only address the grain shortages, but his greater concern over the peasants' willingness to conform to the collective farm system and state mandated grain acquisitions. [7]

Crisis of 1928

This demand for more grain resulted in the reintroduction of requisitioning which was resisted in rural areas. In 1928 there was a 2-million-ton shortfall in grains purchased by the Soviet Union from neighboring markets. Stalin claimed the grain had been produced but was being hoarded by "kulaks." Stalin tried to divide the peasants, pitting the poorer peasants against the kulaks, but it did not help. The peasants as a whole resented the grain seizures. The peasants did everything they could to protest what they considered unfair seizures. Instead of raising the price, the Politburo adopted an emergency measure to requisition 2.5 million tons of grain.

Kolkhoz/Sovkhoz formation

In November 1929, the Central Committee decided to implement accelerated collectivization in the form of kolkhozes (collective farms) and sovkhozes (state farms). This marked the end of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which had allowed peasants to sell their surpluses on the open market. Peasants that were willing to conform and join the kolkhozes were rewarded with higher quality land and tax breaks, whereas peasants were unwilling to join the kolkhozes were punished with being given lower quality land and increased taxes. The taxes imposed on the peasants was primarily to fund the industrial blitz that Stalin had made a priority. [8] If these lesser forms of social coercion proved to be ineffective then the central government would resort to harsher forms of state coercion. [11] Stalin had many kulaks transported to collective farms in distant places to work in agricultural labor camps. In response to this, many peasants began to resist, often began arming themselves against the activists sent from the towns. As a form of protest, many peasants preferred to slaughter their animals for food rather than give them over to collective farms, which produced a major reduction in livestock. [12]

Collectivization had been encouraged since the revolution, but in 1928, only about one per cent of farmland was collectivized, and despite efforts to encourage and coerce collectivization, the rather optimistic first five-year plan only forecast 15 per cent of farms to be run collectively. [1]

Gigantomania

Agricultural work was envisioned on a mass scale. Huge glamorous columns of machines were to work the fields, in total contrast to peasant small-scale work.

Traditionally, the peasants mostly held their land in the form of large numbers of strips scattered throughout the fields of the village community. By an order of January 7, 1930, "all boundary lines separating the land allotments of the members of the artel are to be eliminated and all fields are to be combined in a single land mass." The basic rule governing the rearrangement of the fields was that the process would have to be completed before the spring planting. [13] The new kolkhozes were initially envisioned as giant organizations unrelated to the preceding village communities. Kolkhozes of tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of hectares, were envisioned in schemes which were later to become known as gigantomania. They were planned to be "divided into 'economies ( ekonomii )' of 5,000–10,000 hectares which were in turn divided into fields and sections ( uchastki ) without regard to the existing villages. The aim was to achieve a 'fully depersonalized optimum land area'..." Parallel with this were plans to transfer the peasants to centralized 'agrotowns' offering modern amenities.

Peasant resistance

Communist efforts to collectivize agriculture and eliminate independent property account for the biggest death toll under Stalin's rule. [15] Some peasants viewed collectivization as the end of the world. [16] By no means was joining the collective farm (kolkhoz) voluntary. The drive to collectivize understandably had little support from experienced farmers. [17]

The intent was to withhold grain from the market and increase the total crop and food supply via state collective farms. The anticipated surplus would then pay for industrialization . The kulaks, (who were mostly experienced farmers), were coerced into giving up their land to make way for these collective farms or risk being killed, deported, or sent to labor camps . Inexperienced peasants from urban areas would then replace the missing workforce of the agriculture sector, which was then considered overstaffed, inefficient, and import-dependent. [18] Under Stalin's grossly inefficient system, agricultural yields declined rather than increased. The situation persisted all the way into the 1980s, when Soviet farmers averaged about 10 percent of the output of their counterparts in the United States. [19] To make matters worse, the tractors promised to the peasants could not be produced due to the poor policies in the Industrial sector of the Soviet Union. [20]

Peasants tried to protest through peaceful means by speaking out at collectivization meetings and writing letters to the central authorities, but to no avail. The kulaks argued to the collectors that starvation was inevitable, but they seized everything edible from the kulaks to meet quotas, regardless of whether the kulaks had anything for themselves. Stalin falsely denied there even was a famine and prohibited journalists from visiting the collective farms. In order to cover up for the poor harvests, the Soviet government created a fierce propaganda campaign blaming the kulaks for the famine. The propaganda said they were creating an artificial food shortage by hiding crops only to sell them when prices were high. The state used propaganda to claim, falsely, that kulaks were committing crimes such as arson, lynching, and murder of local authorities and activists. [21]

Collectivization as a "second serfdom"

Rumors circulated in the villages warning the rural residents that collectivization would bring disorder, hunger, famine , and the destruction of crops and livestock. Readings and reinterpretations of Soviet newspapers labelled collectivization as a second serfdom . [22] Villagers were afraid the old landowners/serf owners were coming back and that the villagers joining the collective farm would face starvation and famine. As entry into the kolkhozes was forced, the peasants had reason to believe collectivization was a second serfdom. Farmers did not have the right to leave the collective without permission. The level of state procurements and prices on crops also enforced the idea of serfdom. The government would take a majority of the crops and pay extremely low prices. Even though the serfs during the 1860s were paid nothing, collectivization still reminded the peasants of serfdom. [23] To them, this "second serfdom" became code for the Communist betrayal of the revolution. To the peasants, the revolution was about giving more freedom and land to the peasants, but instead, they had to give up their land and livestock to the collective farm which to some extent promoted communist policies.

Women's role in resistance

Women were the primary vehicle for rumors that touched upon issues of family and everyday life. For example, when it was announced that a collective farm in Crimea would become a commune and that the children would be socialized, women killed their soon-to-be socialized livestock, which spared the children. Stories that the Communists believed short hair gave women a more urban and industrial look insulted peasant women. [24] After local activists in a village in North Caucasus actually confiscated all blankets, more fear dispersed among villagers. The common blanket meant that all men and women would sleep on a seven-hundred meter long bed under a seven-hundred-meter long blanket. [25] Historians argue that women took advantage of these rumors without actually believing them so they could attack the collective farm "under the guise of irrational, nonpolitical protest." [26] Women were less vulnerable to retaliation than peasant men, and therefore able to get away with a lot more.

Religious persecution

cash crops essay

Collectivization did not just entail the acquisition of land from farmers but also the closing of churches , burning of icons , and the arrests of priests. Associating the church with the tsarist regime, the Soviet state continued to undermine the church through expropriations and repression. They cut off state financial support to the church and secularized church schools. The Communist assault on religion and the church angered many peasants, giving them more reason to revolt. Riots exploded after the closing of churches as early as 1929.

Identification of Soviet power with the Antichrist also decreased peasant support for the Soviet regime. Rumors about religious persecution spread mostly by word of mouth, but also through leaflets and proclamations. Priests preached that the Antichrist had come to place "the Devil's mark" on the peasants. [27] and that the Soviet state was promising the peasants a better life but was actually signing them up for Hell . Peasants feared that if they joined the collective farm they would be marked with the stamp of the Antichrist. [28] They faced a choice between God and the Soviet collective farm. Choosing between salvation and damnation, peasants had no choice but to resist the policies of the state. [29] These rumors of the Soviet state as the Antichrist functioned to keep peasants from succumbing to the government. The attacks on religion and the Church affected women the most because they were upholders of religion within the villages. [30]

Dovzhenko 's film Earth portrays peasants' skepticism with collectivization on the basis that it was an attack on the church. [31] Coiner of the term genocide ; Raphael Lemkin considered the repression of the Orthodox Church to be a prong of genocide against Ukrainians when seen in correlation to the Holodomor famine. [32]

Central Asia and Kazakhstan

In 1928 within Soviet Kazakhstan, authorities started a campaign to confiscate cattle from richer Kazakhs, who were called bai, known as Little October. The confiscation campaign was carried out by Kazakhs against other Kazakhs. It was up to those Kazakhs to decide who was a bai and how much to confiscate from them.This engagement was intended to make Kazakhs active participants in the transformation of Kazakh society. More than 10,000 bais may have been deported due to the campaign against them. In areas where the major agricultural activity was nomadic herding, collectivization met with massive resistance and major losses and confiscation of livestock. [34] Livestock in Kazakhstan fell from 7 million cattle to 1.6 million and from 22 million sheep to 1.7 million. Restrictions on migration proved ineffective and half a million migrated to other regions of Central Asia and 1.5 million to China. [35] Of those who remained, as many as a million died in the resulting famine. [36] In Mongolia, a so-called 'Soviet dependency', attempted collectivization was abandoned in 1932 after the loss of 8 million head of livestock. [37]

Historian Sarah Cameron argues that while Stalin did not intend to starve Kazakhs, he saw some deaths as a necessary sacrifice to achieve the political and economic goals of the regime. [38] Cameron believes that while the famine combined with a campaign against nomads was not genocide in the sense of the United Nations (UN) definition, it complies with Raphael Lemkin's original concept of genocide, which considered destruction of culture to be as genocidal as physical annihilation. [39] Historian Stephen Wheatcroft criticizes this view of the Soviet famine because he believes that the high expectations of central planners was sufficient to demonstrate their ignorance of the ultimate consequences of their actions and that the result of their zeal would be famine. Niccolò Pianciola goes further than Cameron and argues that from Lemkin's point of view on genocide all nomads of the Soviet Union were victims of the crime, not just the Kazakhs. [40]

Most historians agree that the disruption caused by collectivization and the resistance of the peasants significantly contributed to the Great Famine of 1932–1933, especially in Ukraine, a region famous for its rich soil (chernozem). This particular period is called " Holodomor " in Ukrainian. During the similar famines of 1921–1923, numerous campaigns – inside the country, as well as internationally – were held to raise money and food in support of the population of the affected regions. Nothing similar was done during the drought of 1932–1933, mainly because the information about the disaster was suppressed by Stalin. Stalin also undertook a purge of the Ukrainian communists and intelligentsia, with devastating long-term effects on the area. [41] Many Ukrainian villages were blacklisted and penalized by government decree for perceived sabotage of food supplies. [42] Moreover, migration of population from the affected areas was restricted. [43] According to Stalin in his conversation with the prize-winning writer Mikhail Sholokhov , the famine was caused by the excesses of local party workers and sabotage,

I've thanked you for the letters, as they expose a sore in our Party-Soviet work and show how our workers, wishing to curb the enemy, sometimes unwittingly hit friends and descend to sadism. ... the esteemed grain-growers of your district (and not only of your district alone) carried on an 'Italian strike' (sabotage!) and were not loath to leave the workers and the Red Army without bread. That the sabotage was quiet and outwardly harmless (without blood) does not change the fact that the esteemed grain-growers waged what was in fact a 'quiet' war against Soviet power. A war of starvation, dear com[rade] Sholokhov. This, of course, can in no way justify the outrages, which, as you assure me, have been committed by our workers. ... And those guilty of those outrages must be duly punished. [44]

cash crops essay

About 40 million people were affected by the food shortages including areas near Moscow where mortality rates increased by 50 percent. The center of the famine, however, was Ukraine and surrounding regions, including the Don, the Kuban, the Northern Caucasus and Kazakhstan where the toll was one million dead. The countryside was affected more than cities, but 120,000 died in Kharkiv, 40,000 in Krasnodar and 20,000 in Stavropol. [45]

The declassified Soviet archives show that there were 1.54 million officially registered deaths in Ukraine from famine. Alec Nove claims that registration of deaths largely ceased in many areas during the famine. [46] However, it's been pointed out that the registered deaths in the archives were substantially revised by the demographics officials. The older version of the data showed 600,000 fewer deaths in Ukraine than the current, revised statistics. [47] In The Black Book of Communism , the authors claim that the number of deaths was at least 4 million, and they also characterize the Great Famine as "a genocide of the Ukrainian people". [48] [49]

After the Soviet Occupation of Latvia in June 1940, the country's new rulers were faced with a problem: the agricultural reforms of the inter-war period had expanded individual holdings. The property of " enemies of the people " and refugees , as well as those above 30 hectares, was nationalized in 1940–1944, but those who were still landless were then given plots of 15 hectares each. Thus, Latvian agriculture remained essentially dependent on personal smallholdings, making central planning difficult. In 1940–1941 the Communist Party repeatedly said that collectivization would not occur forcibly, but rather voluntarily and by example. To encourage collectivization high taxes were enforced and new farms were given no government support. But after 1945 the Party dropped its restrained approach as the voluntary approach was not yielding results. Latvians were accustomed to individual holdings ( viensētas ), which had existed even during serfdom, and for many farmers, the plots awarded to them by the interwar reforms were the first their families had ever owned. Furthermore, the countryside was filled with rumors regarding the harshness of collective farm life.

Pressure from Moscow to collectivize continued and the authorities in Latvia sought to reduce the number of individual farmers (increasingly labelled kulaki or budži ) through higher taxes and requisitioning of agricultural products for state use. The first kolkhoz was established only in November 1946 and by 1948, just 617 kolkhozes had been established, integrating 13,814 individual farmsteads (12.6 percent of the total). The process was still judged too slow, and in March 1949 just under 13,000 kulak families, as well as a large number of individuals, were identified. Between March 24 and March 30, 1949, about 40,000 people were deported and resettled at various points throughout the USSR.

After these deportations, the pace of collectivization increased as a flood of farmers rushed into kolkhozes. Within two weeks 1740 new kolkhozes were established and by the end of 1950, just 4.5 percent of Latvian farmsteads remained outside the collectivized units; about 226,900 farmsteads belonged to collectives, of which there were now around 14,700. Rural life changed as farmers' daily movements were dictated to by plans, decisions, and quotas formulated elsewhere and delivered through an intermediate non-farming hierarchy. The new kolkhozes, especially smaller ones, were ill-equipped and poor – at first farmers were paid once a year in kind and then in cash, but salaries were very small and at times farmers went unpaid or even ended up owing money to the kholhoz. Farmers still had small pieces of land (not larger than 0.5 ha) around their houses where they grew food for themselves. Along with collectivization, the government tried to uproot the custom of living in individual farmsteads by resettling people in villages. However this process failed due to lack of money since the Soviets planned to move houses as well. [50] [51]

Progress of collectivization, 1927–1940

Year Number of
collective farms
Percent of farmsteads
in collective farms
Percent of sown area
in collective use
1927 14,800 0.8
1928 33,300 1.7 2.3
1929 57,000 3.9 4.9
1930 85,900 23.6 33.6
1931 211,100 52.7 67.8
1932 211,100 61.5 77.7
1933 224,500 65.6 83.1
1934 233,300 71.4 87.4
1935 249,400 83.2 94.1
1936 90.5 98.2
1937 243,700 93.0 99.1
1938 242,400 93.5 99.8
1939 235,300 95.6
1940 236,900 96.9 99.8

Sources: Sotsialisticheskoe sel'skoe khoziaistvo SSSR , Gosplanizdat, Moscow-Leningrad, 1939 (pp. 42, 43); supplementary numbers for 1927–1935 from Sel'skoe khoziaistvo SSSR 1935 , Narkomzem SSSR, Moscow, 1936 (pp. 630, 634, 1347, 1369); 1937 from Great Soviet Encyclopedia , vol. 22, Moscow, 1953 (p. 81); 1939 from Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR 1917–1987 , Moscow, 1987 (pp. 35); 1940 from Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR 1922–1972 , Moscow, 1972 (pp. 215, 240).

The official numbers for the collectivized areas (the column with per cent of sown area in collective use in the table above) are biased upward by two technical factors. First, these official numbers are calculated as a per cent of sown area in peasant farmsteads, excluding the area cultivated by sovkhozes and other agricultural users. Estimates based on the total sown area (including state farms) reduce the share of collective farms between 1935–1940 to about 80 percent. Second, the household plots of kolkhoz members (i.e., collectivized farmsteads) are included in the land base of collective farms. Without the household plots, arable land in collective cultivation in 1940 was 96.4 percent of land in collective farms, and not 99.8 percent as shown by official statistics. Although there is no arguing with the fact that collectivization was sweeping and total between 1928 and 1940, the table below provides different (more realistic) numbers on the extent of collectivization of sown areas.

Distribution of sown area by land users, 1928 and 1940

Land users 1928 1940
All farms, '000 hectares 113,000 150,600
State farms (sovkhozes) 1.5% 8.8%
Collective farms (kolkhozes) 1.2% 78.2%
Household plots
(in collective and state farms)
1.1% 3.5%
Peasant farms and other users 96.2% 9.5%

Source: Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR 1922–1972 , Moscow, 1972 (p. 240).

Resistance to collectivization and consequences

cash crops essay

Due to the high government production quotas, peasants generally received less for their labor than they did before collectivization. Some refused to work. Merle Fainsod estimated that, in 1952, collective farm earnings were only one-fourth of the cash income from private plots on Soviet collective farms. In many cases, the immediate effect of collectivization was the reduction of output and the cutting of the number of livestock in half. The subsequent recovery of the agricultural production was also impeded by the losses suffered by the Soviet Union during World War II and the severe drought of 1946. However, the largest loss of livestock was caused by collectivization for all animals except pigs. The numbers of cows in the USSR fell from 33.2 million in 1928 to 27.8 million in 1941 to 24.6 million in 1950. The number of pigs fell from 27.7 million in 1928 to 27.5 million in 1941 and then to 22.2 million in 1950. The number of sheep fell from 114.6 million in 1928 to 91.6 million in 1941 to 93.6 million in 1950. The number of horses fell from 36.1 million in 1928 to 21.0 million in 1941 to 12.7 million in 1950. Only by the late 1950s did Soviet farm animal stocks begin to approach 1928 levels. [52]

Despite the initial plans, collectivization, accompanied by the bad harvest of 1932–1933, did not live up to expectations. Between 1929 and 1932 there was a massive fall in agricultural production resulting in famine in the countryside. Stalin and the CPSU blamed the prosperous peasants, referred to as ' kulaks' (Russian: fist ), who were organizing resistance to collectivization. Allegedly, many kulaks had been hoarding grain in order to speculate on higher prices, thereby sabotaging grain collection. Stalin resolved to eliminate them as a class. The methods Stalin used to eliminate the kulaks were dispossession, deportation, and execution. The term "Ural-Siberian Method" was coined by Stalin, the rest of the population referred to it as the "new method." Article 107 of the criminal code was the legal means by which the state acquired grain. [20]

Further reading

  • Ammende, Ewald. Human life in Russia . Cleveland, OH: J.T. Zubal, 1984 (original 1936), ISBN 0939738546
  • Davies, R. W. The Socialist Offensive Volume 1 (The Industrialization of Soviet Russia). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1980. ISBN 0674814800
  • Davies, R. W. The Soviet Collective Farm, 1929–1930 Volume 2 (The Industrialization of Soviet Russia). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980. ISBN 0674826000
  • Davies, R. W. Soviet Economy in Turmoil, 1929–1930 Volume 3 (The Industrialization of Soviet Russia). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. ISBN 0674826558
  • Davies, R. W., and S. G. Wheatcroft. Materials for a Balance of the Soviet National Economy, 1928–1930 . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985. ISBN 0521261252
  • Dolot, Miron. Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust . New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1987. ISBN 0393304167
  • Kokaisl, Petr. "Soviet Collectivisation and Its Specific Focus on Central Asia," Agris V(4) (2013):  121–133. Retrieved December 30, 2022.
  • Hindus, Maurice. Red Bread: Collectivization in a Russian Village . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988 (original 1931). ISBN 978-0253204851
  • Laird, Roy D. Collective Farming in Russia: A Political Study of the Soviet Kolkhozy . Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1958.
  • Lewin, Moshe. Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization . New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1975. ISBN 0393007529
  • Martens, Ludo. Un autre regard sur Staline . Éditions EPO, 1994, ISBN 2872620818 .
  • Nimitz, Nancy. "Farm Development 1928–62," in Soviet and East European Agricultures , Jerry F. Karcz (ed.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2022 (original 1967). ISBN 978-0520361034
  • Satter, David. Age of Delirium : The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union . New York, NY: Knopf, 1996. ISBN 978-0394529349
  • Taylor, Sally J. Stalin's Apologist: Walter Duranty : The New York Times's Man in Moscow . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1990. ISBN 0195057007
  • Tottle, Douglas. Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard . Toronto, CN: Progress Books, 1987. ISBN 978-0919396517
  • Wesson, Robert G. Soviet Communes . New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1963.
  • Zaslavskaya, Tatyana. The Second Socialist Revolution: An Alternative Soviet Strategy . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990. ISBN 0253206146

External links

All links retrieved January 7, 2024.

  • "The Collectivization 'Genocide'", in Another View of Stalin , by Ludo Martens . Translated from the French book Un autre regard sur Staline , listed above under "References and further reading".
  • "Reply to Collective Farm Comrades" by Stalin
  • Ukrainian Famine: Excerpts from the Original Electronic Text at the web site of Revelations from the Russian Archives
  • "Soviet Agriculture: A critique of the myths constructed by Western critics" , by Joseph E. Medley, Department of Economics, University of Southern Maine (US).
  • "The Ninth Circle" , by Olexa Woropay
  • Prize-winning essay on FamineGenocide.com
  • 1932–34 Great Famine: documented view by Dr. Dana Dalrymple
  • Russia's Necropolis of Terror and the Gulag . This select directory of burial grounds and commemorative sites includes 138 abandoned deportees graveyards left behind by dekulakized peasants and later forced settlers.

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  3. Earn Cash Fast Top 5 Crops in Ghana

  4. CASHLESS ECONOMY ESSAY IN ENGLISH

  5. CAPF AC PAPER 2 ESSAY WRITING

  6. Cash Course: What Is an Economy?

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  1. Cash Crop

    Examples of cash crops grown in the United States today include: Wheat. Fruits and vegetables. Corn. Cotton. Sugar cane. Soybeans and oil-producing plants. Anything can be a cash crop; there is no ...

  2. Cash Crop Farming: Meaning, Advantages, and Disadvantages

    Cash crop farming refers to a type of farming where agricultural crops are grown for the purpose of sale or to make profits, instead of subsistence or barter. It is also called commercial farming or cash cropping. In simpler words, cash crop farming is done by farmers to earn money in return for sustenance or to meet the family's requirements.

  3. Cash Crops: Production and Marketing

    In cooler areas, grain crops, oil-yielding crops and some vegetables predominate an example of this is the United States, where corn, wheat, cannabis and soybeans are the predominant cash crops. In the 1600s, tobacco became a cash crop. Prices for major cash crops are set in commodity markets with global scope, with some local variation (called ...

  4. The cash crop revolution, colonialism and economic reorganization in

    The four maps in Fig. 1 visualize our central argument and empirical approach: cash crop suitability (upper-left panel), at least partially shaped the distribution of historical cash crop production (upper-right panel), which in turn structured colonial infrastructure investments in export-oriented cash crop enclaves (lower-left panel) that have wrought severe and persistent subnational ...

  5. Cash crop

    A cotton ball. Cotton is a significant cash crop. According to the National Cotton Council of America, in 2014, China was the world's largest cotton-producing country with an estimated output of about one hundred million 480-pound bales. [1]A cash crop, also called profit crop, is an agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm.

  6. What are Crops?-Types Of Crops, Cash Crops and Food Crops

    Well-known cash crops include coffee, tea, cocoa, cotton, and sugarcane. Food Crops. The crops that are grown to feed the human population are known as food crops. There are a number of food crops grown in the country. Rice: It is the staple food crop in a majority of regions in the country. Rice is a Kharif crop that requires high temperature ...

  7. Cash Crops: An Introduction

    Abstract. Cash crops are grown for cash generation rather than for sustenance. The commodities are produced and consumed as fruits, flowers, foliage, stems, roots, latex, or any plant parts that ...

  8. (PDF) Cash crops in developing countries: The issues, the facts, the

    The discussion on cash crops cash crop that impedes desertification and that and growth, for example, showed that one area can be grown on marginal land; and Sender and of debate concerned the contribution of export Smith (1987) commend tea in Tanzania for agriculture to overall growth strategies: similarly, the discussion on cash crops and ...

  9. Cash-cropping and Economic Growth in Africa

    This essay will ultimately find that cash-cropping failed to achieve long term growth in African economies due to the transient nature of crop export success. A particular crop typically requires dedication to perfect but its success is short-lived and reliant on world market demand. Economic growth is seen as a general expansion of the goods ...

  10. Cash crop Essays

    Cash crop Essays. The Irish Potato Famine In America 1458 Words | 6 Pages. ... Crop Rotation is the agricultural practice of planting different crops every season, where if one season cash crops (like soy and cotton) are grown then the other season other crops (that replenish the soil's nutrients) are grown. With this alternating crop ...

  11. Cash Crops In Colonial America

    633 Words. 3 Pages. Open Document. Introducing cash crops such as tobacco, sugar, and rice was a pivotal time for the Chesapeake and South Carolina societies. The environment was a big factor on what each colony could grow, and this helped assist in the boom in several cash crops. Such as, the Chesapeake society relied on tobacco because it ...

  12. Cash Crops

    f . Cash Crops. In the late 1800's the majority of farmers grew enough food …show more content…. Cast down your bucket among these people... —Booker T. Washington, 1895. In this speech at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition, Washington was talking to both black and white southerners.

  13. Cash Crops In The 1800s

    Cash crops were one of largest economic changes. In 1800, most subsistence farmers grew all their food to support themselves and families. They grew thing such as maize, yams, sorghum and vegetables. ... Imperialism DBQ Essay In the 19th and 20th centuries Europe (the stronger nation) dominated Africa (the weaker nation) economically ...

  14. Cash Crops Essays

    Cash Crops Essays and Term Papers. The Colonial Economy One economic historian describes the situation in South Carolina in this way: "Rice and indigo transformed the Carolina Low Country in much the same way that sugar had led to basic changes in the West Indies. White workers would not willingly endure the hard and disagreeable labor involved ...

  15. Cash Crops Essay

    Cash Crops Essay. 1093 Words 3 Pages. Planting of cash crops is a process of non-cash crops intend by farmer to grow purposely to protect and improve in-between the time of crop production. It is an easy way to revitalize the fertility of the soil for other subsequent plants growth. Crops duration time are varied from monthly and years ...

  16. Cash Crops Essay

    Cash Crops Essay. 114 views 2 pages ~ 443 words Print. Africans and the Creation of Cash Crops. Africans were heavily involved in the creation of cash crops. Stock claims that in a significant portion of tropical Africa, small-scale peasant farmers predominated in the production of cash crops. (196). For instance, in Senegal and Northern ...

  17. Essay on Agriculture

    100 Word Essay on Agriculture. Agriculture is the art of practising soil cultivation, producing crops, and raising livestock. It involves the production of plants and animals for food, fibre, and other products. Agriculture plays a critical role in our lives for several reasons. Firstly, it provides food for people and animals.

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  19. Collectivization in the Soviet Union

    The level of state procurements and prices on crops also enforced the idea of serfdom. The government would take a majority of the crops and pay extremely low prices. ... collective farm earnings were only one-fourth of the cash income from private plots on Soviet collective farms. In many cases, the immediate effect of collectivization was the ...

  20. Collectivization in the Soviet Union

    The oversimplified intent was to withhold grain from the market and increase the total crop and food supply via state collective farms, with the surplus funding future ... in 1952, collective farm earnings were only one-fourth of the cash income from private plots on Soviet ... Prize-winning essay on FamineGenocide.com; 1932-34 Great Famine ...

  21. Omsk Oblast, Russia guide

    Omsk Oblast - Overview. Omsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia located in the south-eastern part of Siberia, in the Siberian Federal District. Omsk is the capital city of the region. The population of Omsk Oblast is about 1,879,500 (2022), the area - 141,140 sq. km.

  22. Omsk Oblast

    Map of Omsk Oblast. 54.966667 73.383333 1 Omsk — One of Siberia 's most important cities and one of Russia 's largest, an excellent stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway. 56.875278 74.413611 2 Tara — one of Siberia's first cities in the 16th century and the "mother" to many of Siberia's most important cities as it was an expeditionary base; it ...