I have had nightmares about global warming in which there were massive worldwide crop failures. In the dream, the collapse in food supply on the shelves hasn’t hit yet, but it’s inevitable.
That’s my big worry as well, a single harvest failure could easily trigger a global famine.
China’s got huge grain stockpiles, I’m sure they’re plenty aware and nobody else is following lead
Yeah, China takes food security seriously, they’re also leading in building greenhouses for climate controlled food production from what I’ve read.
While I’m normally pretty ignorant on China their greenhouse game is something I’ve been aware of for a while. Its awe inspiring really. When you look into greenhouses and how how to deal with them in a research sense, you will inevitably run into what China is doing. Its a drastic difference compared to the individualistic approach the west has, especially America. That is to say, some people are doing some pretty spectacular things, but it won’t be helpful to the people.
I often wonder how much the cult of liberal individualism in the west has contributed to utter inability to plan and solve long horizon problems that we see today.
A lot probably
China has stockpiles for China. Not so much for the rest of the world.
The issue is that China has a huge population but surprisingly little flat, arable land compared to its total landmass. A lot of China is mountains or deserts.
The US for example has much more farmable space (the most in the world, or closely tied with India), and even Russia, with so much of its landmass being arctic tundra, still has more than China, and that’s not even taking per capita into account.
So yes China has done a very good job ensuring its own food security given its difficult conditions, but much of the rest of the world will still struggle.
from what i’ve heard, the us-“israeli” aggression that triggered the Iranian blockade of Hormuz could lead to this scenario (earlier than climate change related effects) due to severe reduction of materials for making fertilizer
I need to look at more recent figures, but I’m pretty sure this is in part a result of cheap Chinese agri equipment making it easier for global south countries to grow their own. Let’s not forget that American cash crop exports have been a key lever in imperialist extraction over the last 80 years or so
I don’t think wheat is considered a cash crop, i think it’s the opposite of cash crop when you grow staple foods
Hey, what’s up, I live in Ag Country.
Cash Crop is kind of a meaningless distinction, but the way farmers use the term is to separate the portion of their field/harvest not by type or species but what their plan for that chunk of the field is, come harvest time.
There are farmers near me that designate about 10-20% of their soybean or wheat yield as Personal or Subsistence Crop to feed to their family and livestock, and then the other 80-90% of that is Cash Crop.
The colloquial use of the term Cash Crop has entered the public consciousness incorrectly, and the argument here is basically the same as when people misunderstand the definition of the word Theory. There’s a breakdown between the specific scientific use as a format for an explanation distinct from a Law, and the colloquial use which just means an idea.
Why did that happen? Because in many places of the world and at different times, farmers were forced to designate most or all of their yield to be sold or to choose which crops they plant based entirely on sale price to the detriment of their ability to grow their personal subsistence crops. That concept is what entered the public consciousness, and I think that’s the problem here.
I will never agree with another definition for cash crops, cash crops are crops whose only utility is to be sold for cash and that’s an inherent property of the actual thing being farmed. Defining all commodified crops as cash crops also muddles analysis of things like what’s going on with this wheat (sold to Africa cheap, African farmers can’t compete on staple foods, and consequently choose to grow other crops i.e. cotton or soy for sale. One definition has both U.S. and African producers growing “cash crops” but that ignores that one being a staple food product, the ones relying on the import of that have overwhelming dependency on that continued import to not starve)
Also like things like tobacco and cotton, you can’t subsist on them at all. They only have purpose as raw materials to be sold. That’s what makes them inherently cash crops. I will never agree with another definition, I’ll just say the other person is wrong. If farmers are using the wrong definition then that’s fine, they can be wrong too
No, yeah, I feel you. That’s why Literally means Figuratively and linguistic prescriptivism is bad.
Words have meanings and those meanings are whatever I want them to be and everyone else is wrong!
Words have meanings and those meanings are whatever I want them to be and everyone else is wrong
Finally someone gets it
Marxism is an eternal method, an immortal science if you will, which seeks to explain the world accurately. Part of science is refining our beliefs and methods when we discover more accurate information, so part of being a good Marxist is learning to accept when we are wrong about things in healthy ways and to grow from that experience.
If only these people could accept that they are wrong in insisting that any commodified crop is a cash crop, but alas, i can’t force them to grow
Wheat is absolutely a cash crop
cash crops are specifically not eaten as food though, that what makes growing a shitload of cash crops a bad idea and a cause for famine
If the wheat were 100% being used for shit like biodiesel it would be a cash crop, but it’s not
If “wheat is a cash crop” were true the same would be true for rice and at that point the phrase is literally meaningless because it offers no meaningful distinction
Edit: the lying machine agrees with you but i disagree, it thinks the distinguishing factor is whether or not it’s subsistence agriculture and I disagree because that doesn’t fucking matter lol a cash crop isn’t just “a crop that is grown for money” it’s a crop which only has trade value for money. Otherwise every bit of excess a subsistence farmer grows and sells magically becomes “a cash crop” and there’s no distinction between the end-use of what is being grown, which is what matters. Farmers planting a bunch of wheat that ends up being sold aren’t “relying on cash crops” in the same way as cotton or tobacco farmers are.
A cash crop is any crop grown to sell for cash to a (foreign) market, not “non-edible” crops.
No it isn’t
It literally is. You’ve invented a fake definition.
No, you people just don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Under your definition literally any crop grown and sold is a cash crop, but that isn’t true. You’re the ones offering a muddier, useless definition, defining literally any crop ever sold as a cash crop. Rice isn’t a fucking cash crop. If you’ve ever heard it being defined as a cash crop, you’re being fucking lied to. It’s a staple food produced primarily to fucking feed people, and it doesn’t just magically stop being that just because you produce an extra pound of it and sell that shit to someone else. The commodification and sale of a fucking crop is not what makes it a fucking cash crop!
I have literally never my fucking life heard “Cash crops” to refer to anything other than shit like tobacco, cotton, corn for biofuel, etc., you people are just straight up fucked to death wrong here.
What’s really fucking ironic is lol I’m pretty sure that this exact thing, American wheat sold for imperialist purposes, is intended to force reliance on american food imports so that other countries have to have comparatively higher proportions of cash crops instead, feeding the west raw materials while increasing precarity for the developing world
You know why they’re in greater precarity? Because they’re GROWING CASH CROPS, and the U.S. can TURN OFF ITS EXPORTS, which matter BECAUSE THEY’RE EXPORTING STAPLE FOODS AND NOT FUCKING CASH CROPS
Stop fucking bothering me over shit you’re this wrong about
If you accept capitalism/wealth extraction is the natural state of the world, I’m sure calling it a cash crop starts to look like a meaningless distinction. (I’m not saying you do, but I also won’t say you don’t given the context)
I believe it’s worth noting that the mode of agricultural production that gives us wheat as a mass export commodity (often used as a tool for imperialist leverage against colonised peoples) does so for the sake of profit and not to feed humans.
It’s still not a cash crop though, you’re never goingto have a shitload of farmers growing wheat going OH NO WE OVER LEVERAGED INTO CASH CROPS AND NOW THERES A FAMINE
I’ll take “what’s the Irish famine?” For 500
That’s also not the Irish famine though.
Irish peasants grew potatoes because it was more or less the only thing nutrient dense enough to sustain them, due to ever decreasing lot-sizes. Then potato blight + English landlords forcing continued export of food, despite an ongoing famine.Arguing that someone is willing to pay for food, thus all crops are cash crops is like arguing capitalism has been around forever because people traded in the middle ages
Weird how Ive never heard the Irish famine being blamed on “potatoes are a cash crop” until now as you nerds attempt to reinvent the term
there is no need to get confused about it, a cash crop is just the literal definition of a commodity. a thing produced with the explicit purpose of being sold.
You’re wrong
all crops that are harvested and sold are cash crops, or just commodities.
Yes. “We grow food for profit” is a simple statement but absolutely not a neutral one. I feel like I really shouldn’t have to explain this on lemmygrad of all places.
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Yes, wouldn’t cash crops be for instance corn and soy which are largely not for human consumption (biofuels/livestock feed)
I would consider those cash crops yeah because those are the intended purposes and a lot of it can’t even be used for human consumption even if you wanted to. Wheat has industrial uses (literally everything does) but I’ve never heard of it being grown on anywhere near the scale of those for those purposes
Anyway Google’s lying machine says i’m wrong but i still disagree
Google is psyoping again trust the plan 🌽🌾
Every now and then i feel like the entire world retcons some bit of language into some absolute fucking nonsense and this is one of those times. A cash crop isn’t a cash crop just because it’s sold for fucking money, it’s a cash crop if being sold for money is all it’s fucking good for!
being sold for money is all it’s fucking good for
This makes it sound like cash crops are the agricultural equivalent of NFTs lol
The commodity is, first of all, an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind. The nature of these needs, whether they arise, for example, from the stomach, or the imagination, makes no difference. Nor does it matter here how the thing satisfies man’s need, whether directly as a means of subsistence, i.e. an object of consumption, or indirectly as a means of production.
all crops that are sown to be sold on the market are commodities, wrongly named cash crops.
While I’ll concede that commodity better captures the social relation, I disagree that cash crop is somehow the wrong name. In the context of my initial comment it worked well enough, I thought.
In any case, I’m gonna drop this, we’ve gotten way past constructive discourse here. I did appreciate your contributions though.
cash crop = commodity.
You’re wrong
Today I learned about the definition of a cash crop
it’s just a commodity with a fancy name.
what do you call a crop that can ONLY be exchanged as a commodity versus one that has intrinsic non cash uses. Alternatively tell me how you subsist on tobacco or cotton.
You’re wrong! Good night
what do you call a crop that can ONLY be exchanged as a commodity versus one that has intrinsic non cash uses。
A commodity. It doesn’t matter if it fills your belly or your mind, if it’s sown to be sold it’s a commodity, or a cash crop. If its sown not to be sold, its not a commodity but it doesn’t really matter it’s use value.
The commodity is, first of all, an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind. The nature of these needs, whether they arise, for example, from the stomach, or the imagination, makes no difference. Nor does it matter here how the thing satisfies man’s need, whether directly as a means of subsistence, i.e. an object of consumption, or indirectly as a means of production.
That’s from literally the first chapter of Capital.
No you didn’t you just saw nerds embarrass themselves
I thought I knew what it was before but now I’m not so sure
How are the circus harvest coming though?
250 years… average age… blah blah blah
Chat are we cooked?
no, article is farmers begging for even more subsidies.
The wheat sure isn’t
It can be solved. It just needs electrolytes.
67 comments and i can see 5 of them that’s how i know im posting properly
I’m sure it’s fine.
Let them eat Bugles
Y’all have to think like Trump: who benefits from so many farm bankruptcies and the availabilily of soon-to-be-cheaper (maybe not if they’re sowing soybeans -who’s buying if China isn’t?- and such) arable land in the country?
