Sharecropping

Chopping cotton on rented land near White Plains, Greene County, Ga. (1941)

Sharecropping is a system of agriculture or 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 are governed by tradition, others by law. Legal contract systems such as métayage (French origin) and aparcería (Spanish) occur widely, and Islamic law has a traditional “musaqat” sharecropping agreement for the cultivation of orchards.

Overview

Sharecropping typically involves a relatively richer owner of the land and a poorer agricultural worker or farmer; although the reverse relationship, in which a poor landlord leases out to a rich tenant also exists. The typical form of sharecropping is generally seen as exploitative, particularly with large holdings of land where there is evident disparity of wealth between the parties. It can have more than a passing similarity to serfdom or indenture, and it has therefore been seen as an issue of land reform in contexts such as the Mexican Revolution. (Sharecropping is distinguished from serfdom in that sharecroppers have freedom in their private lives and, at least in theory, freedom to leave the land; and distinguished from indenture in sharecroppers’ entitlement to a share of production and, at least in theory, freedom to delegate the work to others.) Sharecropping is often described as a never ending cycle of debt.

Sharecropping agreements can however be made fairly, as a form of tenant farming or sharefarming that has a variable rental payment, paid in arrears. There are three different types of contracts.

1. Workers can rent plots of land from the owner for a certain sum and keep the whole crop.
2. Workers work on the land and earn a fixed wage from the land owner but keep none of the crop.
3. Workers can neither work for nor get paid from the land owner, so the worker and land owner each keep a share of the crop.

There are three different types of tenant farming. According to A. Alkalimat, renters who were to hire land for a fixed rental to be paid either in cash or its equivalent in crop values; share tenants, who furnish their own farm equipment and work animals and obtain use of land by agreeing to pay a fixed percent of the cash crop which they raise; share-croppers who have to have furnished to them not only the land but also farm tools and animals, fertilizer, and often even their own food, which they had to pay back with a larger percentage than shared tenants. Tenant farming was a way in which to keep African Americans and other poor groups under control but make them feel like they had some importance. Though many blacks participated in tenant farming they still were looked at and labeled as the lower class.

Because of the high rate of illiteracy among blacks at the time, they were often taken advantage of. Poor, illiterate and intimidated by post Civil War violence, many former slaves agreed to sharecropping contracts that were designed to keep them poor [PBS]. Eventually this exploitation led to violence. Courts would usually rule in favor of landowners when these incidents were brought to court.

References:

Intro to African American Studies: A. Alkalimat African American Experience in Cyberspace: A. Alkalimat web.worldbank.org google/lynching.com

Sharecropping Agreements

Typically, a sharecropping agreement would specify which party was expected to cover certain expenses, like seed, fertilizer, weed control, irrigation district assessments, and fuel. Sometimes the sharecropper covers those costs, but they expect a larger share of the crop in return. The agreement should also indicate whether the sharecropper will use his own equipment to raise the crops, or use the landlord's equipment. The agreement should also indicate whether the landlord will pick up his or her share of the crop in the field, or whether the sharecropper will deliver it (and where it will be delivered.)

For example, A landowner may have a sharecropper farming an irrigated hayfield. The sharecropper uses his own equipment, and covers all the costs of fuel and fertilizer. The landowner pays the irrigation district assessments and does the irrigating himself. The sharecropper cuts and bales the hay, and delivers one-third of the baled hay to the landlord's feedlot, about ten miles round trip. The sharecropper might also leave the landlord's share of the baled hay in the field, where the landlord would fetch it when we wanted hay.

Another arrangement could have the sharecropper delivering the landlord's share of the product to market, in which case the landlord would get his share in the form of the sale proceeds. In that case, the agreement should indicate the timing of the delivery to market, which can have a significant effect on the ultimate price of some crops. The market timing decision should probably be decided shortly before harvest, so that the landlord has more complete information about the area's harvest, to determine whether the crop will earn more money immediately after harvest, or whether it should be stored until the price rises. Market timing can entail storage costs as well, for some crops.

When negotiating a crop sharing arrangement, you should consider:

1. What crop(s) will the sharecropper produce? 2. Who will pay for fuel. 3. Who will pay for seed. 4. Who owns the farming equipment the sharecropper will use? 5. Who will provide weed control, or other cultivation costs related to the crop? 6. How does the landlord want to receive her share, in kind or in cash? 7. If in cash, when will the crop be delivered to market (and to what market?) 7. If in kind, where will the crop be delivered to the landlord? 8. Who will provide the labor to irrigate? 9. Who will pay the irrigation district assessments? (and on a related note, who will vote the landowner's shares at irrigation district meetings?) 10. Are there other costs related to this particular farming operation that should be allocated in the agreement?

The advantages of sharecropping in other situations include enabling access for women to arable land where ownership rights are vested only in men.

The system occurred extensively in colonial Africa, Scotland, and Ireland, and came into wide use in the Southeastern United States, including Appalachia during the Reconstruction era (1865-1876). After the American Civil War many planters had ample land but little money for wages. At the same time most of the former slaves were uneducated and impoverished. The solution was the sharecropping system, which continued the workers in the routine of cotton cultivation under rigid supervision. Economic features of the system were gradually extended to poor white farmers.[4] Use of the sharecropper system has also been identified in England(as the practice of "farming to halves"). It is still used in many rural poor areas today, notably in India.

United States

In Reconstruction-era United States, sharecropping worked in collaboration with convict lease to re-employ ex-slaves in similar jobs to those prior to their emancipation. To avoid the worse situation of becoming convict labourers, famers were forced to enter into extremely disadvantageous sharecrop ageements that generally left them permanently in debt to the landowner.

Sharecrop farmers were loaned a plot of land to work, and in exchange owed the owner a share of the crop at the end of the season. Often the planter’s share was 1/3, though sometime it was much higher. The sharecropper was required to purchase seed, tools and fertilizer, as well as food and clothing, on credit at the plantation store. When the harvest came, the sharecrop farmer would harvest the whole crop and sell his or her portion to the planter at a fixed price. By the time all the debts owed and proceeds made were tallied up the farmer was lucky to break even. The planter set the price of the crop, and all the books were kept and tallied by the planter, such that there was plenty of opportunity to fudge the books, guaranteeing that the sharecropper never made any profit.

Often planters were not even that generous, and if it were desired that a sharecropper stay on another season, the books could easily be made to come out with him in debt. Thus the sharecropper was often forced to continue working on the same plantation because of a supposed debt. If the most commonly understood attribute of slavery is that one can be bought and sold, sharecroppers were indeed re-enslaved, as they were sometimes “sold” to another planter willing to pay the amount of their debt.

Africa

In colonial Africa, sharecropping was a feature of the agricultural life. White farmers, who owned most of the land, were frequently unable to work the whole of their farm for lack of capital. They therefore allowed black farmers to work the excess on a sharecropping basis. The 1913 Natives Land Act outlawed the ownership of land by blacks in areas designated for white ownership and effectively reduced the status of most sharecroppers to tenant farmers and then to farm laborers. In the 1960s, generous subsidies to white farmers meant that most farmers could afford to work their entire farms, and sharecropping faded out.

The arrangement has reappeared in other African countries in modern times, including Ghana and Zimbabwe.

Farmer's cooperatives

Cooperative farming exists in many forms throughout the United States, Canada, and the rest of the world. Various arrangements can be made through collective bargaining or purchasing to get the best deals on seeds, supplies, and equipment. For example, members of a farmer's cooperative who cannot afford heavy equipment of their own can lease them for nominal fees from the cooperative. Farmers cooperatives can also allow groups of small farmers and dairymen to manage pricing and prevent undercutting by competitors.

See also

• Sharefarming
• Sharemilking
• Convict lease

External links

• "A History of American Agriculture".
• Charles C Bolton (March 2004). "Farmers Without Land: The Plight of White Tenant Farmers and Sharecroppers". Mississippi History Now. Retrieved 2006-05-18.
• "Sharecropper photographs". University of Missouri–St. Louis.