A form of agricultural tenancy in which the tenant pays for use of the land with a predetermined share of his crop rather than with a cash rent.
a tenure where a land owner allows a person (“share cropper”) to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land.
Working land in return for a share of the crops produced instead of paying cash rent. Shortage of currency in the South made sharecropping a frequent form of land tenure. Black families preferred it because it eliminated the labor gangs used in the days of slavery.
During Reconstruction, southerners adopted the sharecropping system. In it, the landowners provided land, tools, housing, and seed to a sharecropping farmer who provided his labor. The resulting crop was divided between them (i.e., shared).
In an agricultural lease, the agreement between the landowner and the tenant farmer to split the crop or the profit from its sale, actually sharing the crop.
Sharecropping is a system of agricultural production where a landowner allows a sharecropper to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range of different situations and types of agreements that have encompassed the system. Some governed by tradition, others by law.