cash crop
- noun
- /kæʃ krɑp/
- In Hawaii, the demand for macadamia nuts has turned them into a lucrative cash crop for many farmers.
- cash crops for export
- cash crop production
- cash crops, such as coffee
Soybeans are a legume and it allows you to have a basically a cash crop that you can sell for soy products.
- Soybeans are a legume and it allows you to have a basically a cash crop that you can sell for soy products.
Examples
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Cultivating sufficient cash crops to pay taxes strained a household's labor capacity.
Academic text (1991) -
To pay newly imposed taxes, people found themselves forced to cultivate cash crops.
Academic text (1997) -
For several years, we raised a couple of acres of cucumbers, an important cash crop.
Fiction book (1990) -
The possibility of cultivating tobacco as a cash crop required the building of a road.
Academic text (1990) -
Thus, Maaklen village has become a typical cash crop-dependent village.
Academic text (2017) -
Immigrants who wanted to practice agriculture did so by raising fruits, vegetables, and other cash crops for export.
Academic text (1993) -
Self-sufficient in food production, the villagers have grown coffee as a cash crop since the early 1960s.
Academic text (1994) -
In this fertile, cash-crop-producing region, the missionaries set up schools and taught valuable skills.
Academic text (1994) -
Lavender is a cash crop recently introduced on the islands of Brae and Hvar.
Academic text (1993) -
Overall, adjustment programs in Ghana favored cash crop farmers and export-oriented industries.
Academic text (1995)
How Marketable
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'cash' (money) + 'crop' (plants grown) yields a crop produced for sale rather than personal use, so a B1 learner who knows both words can readily infer this sense. This noun–noun compounding pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows transparent semantic logic, making the expression immediately comprehensible.
Etymology
The noun cash crop comes from the simple idea of a crop grown to earn cash: farmers planted it not to feed their family but to sell at market. That's why it means a plant grown mainly 'for sale' rather than 'for personal use'.