User blog comment:KusaNin/Village Economies/@comment-28602918-20160729152524

The session apparently had a problem so it deleted everything I wrote TTwTT I'll try rewriting it but I won't be able to recreate it the same agh, I'm sorry if this is just utter bullshit.

Anyway...based on the description of your land and that of Kusagakure I think that, firstly, Read Books is completely right in taking advantage of vegetation, plants for medicine or otherwise, tourism and the creation of a land/village speciality to add more money to the coffers. I would also add that with plants, depending on the type grow, you can look at textile exportation. (So plants like cotton for example)

An abundance of woods can lead to the possibility of exporting more gourmet meats: rabbit and wild boar. While a large number of rivers could suggest plentiful sweet water fish.

You wrote that your land contains the Crystal Shard Cave. If more such caves exist, the crystal could be excavated and used in the production of jewellery (example) which can be exported. My OC Michiko wears a pair of crystal earrings which allow her to store chakra for later use. If the crystal excavated from your land has similar properties I imagine this would be an amazing resource that would sell for quite a lot. Especially considering the developed technology they possess by the time of Boruto the movie.

However, I think that it is important to take note of the relationship between a hidden village and the daimyō of the country they live in. Hidden villages are politically independent from the daimyō but the way I see things in terms of Naruto world economy and trade is that hidden villages are unlikely to be big producers. Since their focus lies on military power. Sure there might be land dedicated to lets say farming, but they can't just give civilian enough land to not only be able to produce enough food to sustain the village but to also export it. Hence why I think trade, mostly importing is something hidden villages are dependent on. And while merchants might save the power to decide for how much to sell their wares, if a village has a negative relationship with the daimyō then there is a possibility that trade would go down, and merchants be (extreme case) banned from trading with said village. This would, of course, apply just to merchants native to the land and under the daimyō's rule. Therefore when imagining scenes relating to the negotiation/trading of good, this must be done with the approval of the daimyō since as the country belongs to him/her, they have power over its resources. So you could possibly have scenes where your OC Kazō is negotiating with foreign daimyō or with their own daimyō were he tries to convince him of the benefits of trading with x-village/land. This is just my opinion, but I hope that it was of some help.

As for what other countries might have or need:

Land of Earth, has a rocky landscape so they might have an abundance of minerals/crystals and ...well rock. I doubt they would have much land for farming or be very fertile so for them importing food would be a very important thing. (This is also why I think, when it come to trade, the daimyō's are so important. Take the world wars, if villages controlled trade, then they could simply prevent villages like Iwa who would need supplies like food from getting them. But since it is up to the daimyō, I doubt they would care about the squabbles of the hidden villages enough to stop trade which brings more money to the land)

The Land of Lighting I see as having an abundance of metal and mineral since they also seem to have a lot of mountains. I think the reason why I believe they have a lot of metal comes from the fact that so many of them carry swords or additional weapons compared to the standard ones. Which could be due to their speciality, but I think if metal was scarce or more expensive fewer shinobi would take to kenjutsu if simply for the cost of maintaining the weapon(s) or replacing it. Though I think they would be big in terms of tourism due to the many hot springs the country is known for.

The Land of Rice/Sound, I think would be the biggest in terms of exporting food, rice especially, they are rather new in terms of having shinobi military as it was Orochimaru who created the sound village, and from the looks of it the country has a strong focus on agriculture. Maybe have scenes where Kazō has to compete with the Rice delegate in negotiations to convince other lands to but products from them?

The Land of Iron I believe would be very similar to how Sir Aether described the land of Ice since their climate seems very similar.

This is all I have so far. I know I focused more on land vs land trading but I hope you still found something useful from all my rambling.