| definition |
- Crops that are grown for sale in the town markets or for export. They include coffee, cocoa, sugar, vegetables, peanuts and non-foods, like tobacco and cotton. Huge areas of countries in the developing world have been turned over to cash crops. Those countries with no mineral or oil resources depend on cash crops for foreign money, so that they can import materials do develop roads, for construction, or to buy Western consumer goods and, indeed, food. However, critics argue that cash crops are planted on land that would otherwise be used to grow food for the local community and say this is a cause of world famine. Cash crops, such as peanuts, can ruin the land if it is not left fallow after six years of harvests. Moreover, if the best agricultural land is used for cash crops, local farmers are forced to use marginal land to grow food for local consumption, and this has a further dramatic effect on the environment.
|
| Abstract from DBPedia | A cash crop or profit crop is an agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from staple crop (or "subsistence crop") in subsistence agriculture, 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 developed countries and among smallholders almost all crops are mainly grown for revenue. In the least developed countries, cash crops are usually crops which attract demand in more developed nations, and hence have some export value. Prices for major cash crops are set in international trade markets with global scope, with some local variation (termed as "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 has been criticized by traditional farmers. Coffee is an example of a product that has been susceptible to significant commodity futures price variations.商品作物（しょうひんさくもつ）、または換金作物とは、自家消費ではなく市場での販売を目的として生産する農作物のこと。主な商品作物の例として、コーヒーや、ゴム、バナナなどが挙げられる。 (Source: http://dbpedia.org/resource/Cash_crop) |
