Cash Crop

Cash crops typically refer to food and nonfood plants whose yields are sold. Also called export or commercial crops, cash crops are intended to produce income, whereas subsistence crops are grown to feed one's family and/or livestock, as well as to use in barter. Cash crops are usually sold as primary commodities. Value-added processing may occur within the country of production, and/or the crops may be transported elsewhere for further processing and packaging.

Examples of cash crops include, but are by no means limited to: Bananas, cocoa, coffee, cotton, cut flowers, grains, sugarcane, tea, tobacco, and tomatoes. Cash crops can be grown in tandem with subsistence foods and one another, but more frequently they are produced in monocultures dependent on capital-intensive inputs of chemical or synthetic ...