Tenant farming

An agricultural system in which landowners rent their land to farmers or tenants, and receive either cash or a share of the crop as compensation.

In some forms of tenant farming, the tenant may furnish all the equipment and have substantial autonomy in the farm's operation, as opposed to the arrangement, known as sharecropping, whereby the landowner furnishes the capital and sometimes the food, clothing, and medical expenses of the tenant and may also supervise the work. The sharecropper then pays the landowner with a portion of the output grown on the land.