2018 Spring Farm

2018 Logan County Farm Outlook Magazine LINCOLN DAILY NEWS March 22, 2018 Page 35 A s with any other business, the agricultural industry comes with its own set of agreed-upon definitions. For crop farming, this means coming to a consensus over terms regarding crop production. These terms include concepts like cash crops, subsistence crops, specialty crops, organic crops, GMO’s, and non-GMO’s. For the purposes of this article, crops are defined by the USDA as “plants that are cultivated either for sale or for subsistence.” Some plants are considered to be specialty crops when cultivated. A specialty crop, then, is defined as “fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits and horticulture and nursery crops, including floriculture.” According to the USDA, “in order for a plant to be considered cultivated, some form of management must be applied.” This definition includes plant related bi- products harvested from “wild areas” that are documented for research purposes. If a naturally occurring population of plants is managed by people, and satisfies the definition of a specialty crop, then those plants would be considered as such. For the purpose of government programs, states may choose to define plants collected from the wild as specialty crops. There is still some confusion in defining specialty crops with regard to horticulture. Wading through the confusion of crop classification Continue 8