KnowraCash cropCash cropA crop grown primarily for sale and income rather than for the producer’s own consumption or use.BriefConnectCoffee production: The cultivation and processing of coffee beans for domestic use and international trade. Coffee is a widely traded perennial cash crop, often grown by smallholders.Agricultural value chain: The linked activities that move agricultural products from input supply and farming through processing and sale. A cash crop earns income through a chain extending beyond the field.Monoculture: The cultivation of a single crop over a large area or across repeated growing seasons. Cash-crop specialization can replace diverse farming with a single-crop system.Plantation economy: An economic system centered on large farms producing crops for export, historically often through coerced labor. Plantations organized many export crops around concentrated land ownership and labor control.Subsistence agriculture: Farming that primarily produces food and other goods for the farm household’s own use. It contrasts directly with growing crops chiefly to earn income through sale.Cotton production: The cultivation and processing of cotton fiber for textiles and other products. Cotton links farm income to global textile supply chains.Contract farming: An agreement in which farmers produce agricultural goods under terms set with a buyer. Contracts can secure a market for cash crops while limiting farmers’ choices.Crop diversification: The cultivation of multiple crops to spread production, market, and environmental risks. Diversification offers an alternative to dependence on one cash crop.Atlantic slave trade: The forced transportation of millions of Africans across the Atlantic into slavery from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Enslaved labor produced major plantation cash crops in the Americas.Food crop: A crop cultivated primarily for human consumption rather than for nonfood uses or sale as a commodity. The distinction depends on a crop’s primary purpose, not simply its species.Show all 27Linked from 10 pagesColonialism in AfricaRelated: Colonial economies often redirected land and labor toward export crops.Cover cropCompared with: A cash crop is harvested for its product; a cover crop is grown chiefly for soil benefits.PlantationRelated: Plantation production centered on crops that could be sold in regional or overseas markets.Subsistence economyCompared with: Cash-crop production can compete with subsistence food production for land and labor.Smallholder agricultureRelated: Cash crops connect some smallholder farms to local and global markets.Staple foodCompared with: Cash crops compete with food staples for land, labor, and investment.Plantation agricultureRelated: Plantation production is usually organized around crops sold into commercial markets.Nonfood cropCompared with: Cash crops are defined by their market role, not by whether people eat them.Show all 10