Question

1. Why does sharecropping continue to exist as opposed to laborers renting land and paying for the rent with the proceeds of their harvest?

Sharecropping is a farming system in which owners of the land allow others to farm it and then the harvest is split, with some portion (let's say half) going to the laborer and some to the land owner. Renting land (the "English system") is an alternative in which laborers pay a fixed monetary rent and then keep all of the proceeds of their production. For hundreds of years commentators have pointed out that sharecropping lowers overall investment and effort and that renting both generates more revenue for owners and, on average, more revenue for laborers due to the harvest generally being much larger. However, when prices drop significantly for agricultural outputs, rents can exceed the total value of output under the English system. Given that in the English system rent returns more money to land owners and on average generates more income for laborers than sharecropping, why is sharecropping still so common? Note: The answer is not that the sharecroppers are poor.

Answer 1

Ans- Sharecropping is a type of farming in which the big landowners or big families rent their small plots to sharecroppers against a portion of their crop which has to be given by sharecroppers to landowners at the end of each year. The landowner can exploit the sharecroppers because they are very poor. The landowner can chagre any amount or portion from them.

But it widespread when there is economic disturbance caused by the end of slavery during and after the reconstruction. Now,it became a way to earn because slavery was ended. For poor farmers it became a way to earn a living from someone's other land.

That could be the first reason why sharecropping continue to exist.

Also it have many Americans (african Americans) autonomy in their daily work and also liberalised from gang-labor system.