An agrarian system is the dynamic set of economic and technological factors that affect

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

practices. It is premised on the idea that different systems have developed depending on the natural and social conditions specific to a particular region. Political factors also have a bearing on an agrarian system due to issues such as land ownership,

labor organization A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

, and forms of cultivation. As

food security Food security is the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, healthy Human food, food. The availability of food for people of any class, gender, ethnicity, or religion is another element of food protection. Simila ...

has become more important, mostly due to the explosive

population growth Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. The World population, global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 8.2 billion in 2025. Actual global human population growth amounts to aroun ...

during the 20th century, the efficiency of agrarian systems has come under greater

review A review is an evaluation of a publication, product, service, or company or a critical take on current affairs in literature, politics or culture. In addition to a critical evaluation, the review's author may assign the work a content rating, ...

Types

The basis for a prevailing agrarian system may be derived from one of a number of major types, including agrarian social structure, for example,

tribal The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

or ethnic divisions,

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...

classes or family based systems. Farming methods such as migratory

herding Herding is the act of bringing individual animals together into a group (herd), maintaining the group, and moving the group from place to place—or any combination of those. Herding can refer either to the process of animals forming herds in ...

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

are a common framework for which an agrarian system may evolve. Other important kinds of system are based on the dominant political ideology such as

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

agrarian socialism Agrarian socialism or agricultural socialism is a political ideology that promotes social ownership of agrarian and agricultural production as opposed to private ownership. Agrarian socialism involves equally distributing agricultural land among ...

. Europe is dominated by mixed farming. This has meant careful management of

tillage Tillage is the agriculture, agricultural preparation of soil by mechanical wikt:agitation#Noun, agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. Examples of manual labour, human-powered tilling methods using hand tools inc ...

practices and good tools and implements were important. China developed an agrarian system based on labor-intensive wet rice cultivation where skill was paramount.

Regional examples

The Ottoman agrarian system was based around the tapu, which involved a permanent lease of

state-owned State ownership, also called public ownership or government ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, property, or enterprise by the national government of a country or state, or a public body representing a community, as opposed to ...

arable land Arable land (from the , "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of a ...

to a

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...

family. In Haiti there was a

social system In sociology, a social system is the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions. It is the formal Social structure, structure of role and status that can form in a smal ...

based on collective labor teams, called kounbit, where farms were run by nuclear families and exchanges. This was replaced by smaller groups, called eskouad, who operated on a reciprocal basis or conducted collective labor to other peasants for a price. In the 20th century the distribution of land ownership in rural

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

had become grossly unequal. An overwhelming majority of land owners possessed small parcels of land while a small minority owned large farms. Many of the rural poor were landless. By the middle of the century the calls for

agrarian reform Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Lan ...

grew.

Tenancy A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

reforms, including

rent control Rent regulation is a system of laws for the rental market of dwellings, with controversial effects on affordability of housing and tenancies. Generally, a system of rent regulation involves: *Price controls, limits on the rent that a landlord ...

and

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. List of countries by minimum wage, Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation b ...

legislation were enacted with mixed results. In

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

, the

Igbo people The Igbo people ( , ; also spelled Ibo" and historically also ''Iboe'', ''Ebo'', ''Eboe'', / / ''Eboans'', ''Heebo''; natively ) are an ethnic group found in Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea. Their primary origin is fo ...

developed an agrarian system in which some farmers became traders. Their emphasis on small-scale,

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

ial capitalism was fundamental to

Nigerian Independence Nigeria's Independence Day is a public holiday observed annually on 1 October to commemorate the country's declaration of independence from British rule in 1960. It marked the end of over sixty years of colonial governance and the emergence o ...

References

{{reflist Agriculture

Types

Regional examples

See also

References