Sharecropping

Sharecropping is the 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 different from tenant farming, which provides the tenant greater autonomy, and higher economic and social status.

Sharecropping may be a traditional arrangement of land governed by law. The Frenchmétayage, the Catalanmasoveria, the Castilianmediero, the Polish połownictwo and Russian izdolshchina, the Italianmezzadria, and the Islamic system of muzara‘a (المزارعة), are examples of legal systems that have supported sharecropping.