Sharefarming is a system of farming in which sharefarmers make use of agricultural assets they do not own in return for some percentage of the profits. Sometimes the sharefarmer will receive a wage from the owner instead, although such a person is normally considered a tenant farmer

Tenant farmer

A tenant farmer is one who resides on and farms land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management; while tenant farmers contribute their labor along with at times varying...

or farm labourer. Two common implementations of the sharefarming concept are sharecropping

Sharecropping

Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land . This should not be confused with a crop fixed rent contract, in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a fixed amount of...

and sharemilking

Sharemilking

Sharemilking is a form of sharefarming applied to the dairy industry. The application of this model of farming is particularly common in New Zealand. Typically sharemilkers own their own cows, and will often take the herd with them when shifting between properties...

, although it is applied to other sorts of agricultural assets.

Sharefarming was common in colonial Africa, Scotland, and Ireland and came into wide use in the United States during the Reconstruction era (late 19th century). In Europe, especially France and Italy, a sharefarming system called metayage was once commonly applied.

While sharefarming can be seen as a form of oppression similar to feudal

Feudalism

Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...

 serfdom

Serfdom

Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...

and is in practice in many poor areas today, such as India, it is also common in highly developed countries. The latter case occurs where individual farmers prefer not to have complete responsibility for agricultural assets such as the land or livestock, and in such applications it is not considered exploitative.

Sharecropping

Sharecropping is the most common application of the sharefarming principle. In practice, sharefarmers work land which they don't own in return for varying portions of the total profit. In many cases where it is practiced in very poor farming communities it is considered an exploitative model. Sharecropping began after the Civil War and ended between the 1930s and the 1940s because when machines came that could to farming more easily, landowners didn't need actual people working the fields.

Sharemilking

Sharemilking is the application of the sharefarming concept to the dairy industry. Sharemilkers tend to own their own cows but use facilities they do not own to actually milk the cows. This is often a convenient arrangement as milking facilities would otherwise lie empty and unused for several hours of the day.