globalEDGE Blog - By Tag: cash-crop-series

In the last part of this week's series on cash crops, we explore the top two African cash crops.

Africa has long been rich in natural resources, consistently providing other nations with opportunities to obtain its plentiful supply of cotton and cocoa—two of the world’s most important cash crops.  According to Merriam-Webster, a cash crop is “a readily salable crop (such as cotton or tobacco) produced or gathered primarily for market.”  These crops aim to provide a sustainable way of life for farmers across the continent and are a major reason much of the world’s nations were and still are interested in exploring and investing in Africa.

This is part four of this week's five-part blog series on cash crops.

South America was colonized by the Spanish and the Portuguese.  These colonies were extremely profitable for Spain and Portugal because they could plant crops there that they could not plant in Europe.  This lead to the production of cash crops in South America, such as coffee and sugarcane, to be traded and sold in Europe.  These cash crops played a large role in establishing the colonies in South America, and still play an important role in their economy today. 

In part three of this week's five-part blog series on cash crops blog, we look at the economic effects of illicit cash crops. 

With this month’s blog series focusing on cash crops, globalEDGE has decided to look at the role illicit cash crops play in the global economy. Illicit cash crops are plants that are used in the production of illegal narcotics. With a multibillion-dollar global market, it is unquestionable that illicit cash crops play a significant role in economies across the globe.

Part two of this week's five-part series on cash crops and the impact they have around the world. 

Cash crops are a major economic factor in almost every region of the world. In North America, there is a wide variety of cash crops that are grown and sold. The biggest cash crops in modern day America currently are corn and soybeans; which bring in about 50 billion dollars each. However, these fields have been ever-changing for the last two centuries. The first cash crop which helped America’s economy grow is tobacco. Tobacco grew very well in the early Thirteen British-American Colonies,  this crop was especially prevalent in Virginia, people would immigrate to come work in the tobacco fields. With the population growing and money coming back into the economy, the colonies began to grow rapidly. Cash crops were one of the main reasons the United States is where it is today. Production of tobacco was one of the major reasons the early British-American Colonies grew as large as they did due to the influx of money into their economy. By the year 1630, the amount of tobacco sent from the Colonies to Great Britain totaled about 1.5 million pounds a year.

This week the globalEDGE blog will look at cash crops around the world.  Cash crops are crops that are grown specifically to be sold in a marketplace or traded; essentially a crop grown not for direct consumption by the farmer.  Cash crops have played a large role in shaping the world throughout history.  A major factor in the colonization of the New World were the dollar signs investors saw in cash crops like tobacco and cotton in the Americas.  The only reason that the New World was even discovered was because Europeans were looking for a faster route to reach China and India to trade for their tea and other spices. Tea and most spices are products of cash crops.