Rural tenancy refers to a type of

sharecropping Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a ...

or tenancy arrangement that a landowner can use to make full use of

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, re ...

he may not otherwise be able to develop properly. A " tenant" or non-landowner will take residency on the property of the landowner and work the land in exchange for giving the landowner a percentage of the profits from the eventual crop. Tenancy can be unintrusive (where the tenant provides home, transportation, tools, seed, etc.) in which case the landowner gives the tenant a large portion of the profits or it can be intrusive (where the landowner provides home, food, tools, seed, etc. on credit) in which case the landowner will keep most or even all of the profits. The term "rural tenancy" usually describes the situation of previously enslaved people that were now tenants on the landowner's property. The landowner would extend the

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer ...

shelter, food, and necessary items on credit to be repaid out of the tenant's share of the

crop A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. In other words, a crop is a plant or plant product that is grown for a specific purpose such as food, Fiber, fibre, or fuel. When plants of the same spe ...

. The farmer could, if he desired, charge the tenant extremely high interest on the advanced pay since there were no lending laws applicable to migrant or tenant workers at the time. This could ultimately result in the tenant owing the landlord more money than his share of the crop at harvest and forcing the farmer to be further

indentured An indenture is a legal contract that reflects an agreement between two parties. Although the term is most familiarly used to refer to a labor contract between an employer and a laborer with an indentured servant status, historically indentures we ...

to the landowner. This practice was used frequently by landowners in the South after

slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

was abolished. Modern day tenancy is much more highly regulated and these practices are less common. A "tenant" or non-landowner will take residency on the property of the landowner and work the land in exchange for giving the landowner a percentage of the profits from the eventual crop.

References

Agricultural labor {{Agri-stub