• BanMeFromPosting [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      14 days ago

      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

      • LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins [none/use name, any]@hexbear.net
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        14 days ago

        No don’t you understand, potatoes are just a cash crop because they were sold for cash! I blocked the guy

        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

        fucking exactly, this definition of cash crop literally would define any surplus of any crop as a cash crop. Your farm produces enough rice to sell? Ah you’re growing cash crops!! I’m getting angry that i even need to argue this

      • nohaybanda [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        14 days ago

        Irish tenant farmers grew potatoes as a subsistence crop, while the wealthy landlords grew wheat and oats as a cash crop to export. It is in fact a great illustration how growing food by itself will not stave off a famine when the social relation demands that thousands must starve for a few to get even wealthier.

        Re: your last point, I have been careful not to blame capitalism specifically in this thread. Wheat was grown as a cash crop in Ancient Rome. The development of the slaver latifundia system leading to the economic marginalisation of the plebeians was a major source of class conflict in their society.

      • nohaybanda [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        14 days ago

        Potatoes were the subsistence crop you smug ignorant dipshit. The landlords exported tons of and tons of wheat, barley and oats as cash crops even as thousands died from a preventable famine.

        Go read my initial comment and tell me why might someone want to center the profit motive for crop production when discussing colonisation and global food security on a communist forum. It’s almost as if who owns the land and who chooses what to grow and where to send it has some bearing on the topic.

        But no, you misunderstood a term and when corrected had to make it an entire thing instead of just learning and moving on. Also, miss me with the cope about AI hallucinations telling you you’re wrong. Maybe switch off the Forest Burninator 5000 and go look up a static resource to find out this is a term with decades of established use.

        BTW the distinction you’re thinking of is food crops vs industrial crops.