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Why Grow Cash Crops? Subsistence Farming and Crop Commercialization in the Kolli Hills, South India
Author(s) -
FINNIS ELIZABETH
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.2006.108.2.363
Subject(s) - subsistence agriculture , cash crop , commercialization , cash , agriculture , context (archaeology) , agency (philosophy) , business , economic growth , agricultural economics , marketing , geography , economics , sociology , social science , finance , archaeology
In this article, I provide an analysis of local decision making surrounding crop commercialization in the Kolli Hills, South India. I argue that in the context of changes in the physical environment, cultivating tapioca (cassava) as a cash crop is a conscious decision made by small farmers based on their perceptions of environmental insecurity. Farmers understand market integration as key to coping with external, uncontrollable changes and to fulfilling household and community aspirations. Decisions to cultivate tapioca have contributed to aspects of community development and increasing political agency on the part of villagers.