Cash crop
Cash crops (English for " cash crops " ) is a term used in agricultural economics, which is not used consistently in the literature.
Definitions
There are at least four different definitions according to which designates cash crops following products of plant, animal and forest production:
- All surpluses that are marketed
- All products other than basic food
- All products other than food
- All products that are exported.
Effects
Maxwell and Fernando (1989 ) presented a controversial debate about the impact of cash crops firmly on growth, distribution, food security, dependency and the environment.
Economic growth
To date (1989 ) there were very few case studies with different results on the effects of cash crops on economic growth.
Poverty and income
At the time of publication of Maxwell and Fernando (1989 ), the view was prevalent that cash crops have negative distributional effects. A growing number of case studies showed, however, that cash crops can use poor households, either directly or through the labor market. In Tanzania, an overcoming of poverty most able to those farmers who cultivated their diversified agriculture and besides food for their own consumption cash crops ( vegetables, fruit, vanilla) and kept cattle. Poverty remained rather in more traditional systems exist. In Uganda, overcoming poverty was associated with an improvement in productivity and diversification in commercial plants. In Malawi, smallholder farmers produce 70 % of the - mainly exported - tobacco, which has allowed them a socio-economic advancement. In Vietnam, the liberalization of agricultural markets led to greater market orientation of small farmers, reducing their poverty rate fell drastically and their incomes increased significantly.
Food safety
Critics such as Food First keep the cultivation of cash crops for a threat to food security. According to Moore Lappé and Collins ( 1977) is the diet of poor people no longer ensured when developing countries export their food production. Maxwell and Fernando hold that this argument is a dangerous simplification. Per Pinstrup -Andersen (1983 ) criticizes those who through basic food a solution to the hunger problem seen in a substitution of cash crops, as this approach possible benefits through trade and the possibilities of different groups to obtain food ignore. Von Braun and Kennedy ( 1986) found in an analysis of the literature no evidence of a trade-off between cash crops and staple foods; reach most countries either a growth in both or in neither.
At household level results according to von Braun and Kennedy ( 1986), no clear picture of the impact of cash crops to food. Models like that of Fafchamps (1992 ) suggest that small farmers only then amplified to switch to cash crops when a price stable ability to buy food - for example through adequate transport infrastructure / market integration - is given. Food security will be essential for the cultivation of cash crops by small farmers.
Dependence
Cash crops can reinforce existing dependencies and create new ones. For example, coffee producers can be dependent on the demand behavior of consumers in rich countries and suffer under such crises. According to Susan George (1985 ) threatened with cash crops a function of the marketing of these cash crops by multinational corporations and a dependence on the food supply by rich countries. According to UNCTAD, in 1980 controlled three of the largest six multinationals 85-90 % of coffee, 85% of the cocoa and 70-75 % of the banana trade. A recent analysis of smallholder cocoa production in Indonesia showed that local producer prices are indeed closely correlated with world market prices. The small farmers redeemed on average, however (high ) 70.2 % of the world market prices. Maxwell and Fernando (1989 ) hold the view for exaggerated that farmers lose for the world market through the production of cash crops have control over their production decisions.
Environment
There are, according to Maxwell and Fernando (1989 ) no evidence that export-oriented agricultural production is harmful to the environment than the commercial food production for household consumption.