Sharecropping and conversion to lease (part one)

The sharecropping contract, as well as the contract of colonia parziaria, fall-or rather fell-under the category of associative contracts, that is, those contracts in which the parties confer goods or services in pursuit of a common purpose,

This type of contract became widespread from the late Middle Ages (1000-1492) in the perspective of the feudal production system, which was predominantly agricultural and pastoral and therefore centered on the concession of land, by the estate, to third parties for the purpose of its processing and/or exploitation, as well as the subsequent division of the proceeds, albeit unequally between grantor and grantee. This contract type was used until the end of the last century.

Sharecropping, unlike partial colony, had as its object the contribution of a “podere,” that is, a fund equipped with a farmhouse at the disposal of the concessionary family (see Trib. Foggia, Sec. Agr. Feb. 14, 2012) and equipped with all the tools necessary for the material running of the enterprise (Azienda agricola) and eventual processing of the harvest. The extent of the farm, as a whole understood in that the farm family was an inseparable element of what was granted to it under tenure, had to be such as to ensure the maintenance of a farm family, absorb its labor and produce a fair amount of fruits and profits.

An associative agrarian contract therefore existed between the landowner and the cultivator, in which the produce and income from the farm were divided between the parties usually to the extent of half, with a strong disadvantage to the sharecropper, who would have to derive from this half both the seeds needed for planting for the following agricultural campaign and his own livelihood. In later times, the agreement that held thata“covenant by which certain products are divided in different proportions” was “valid” took hold (Article 2141 of the Civil Code).

In order to remedy the unequal treatment resulting from this form of contract, the legislature has repeatedly intervened in favor of the sharecropper’s position, culminating in the prohibition of new sharecropping contracts, introduced by l. Sept. 15, 1964 no. 756.

However, this provision of the law did not sanction the nullity of the sharecropping contract, as the nullity did not take effect for the period during which the contract had nevertheless been executed (so-called de facto sharecropping): during this period the rules provided for the sharecropping contract had to be equally applied (see Cass. Civ., Nov. 29, 1984, No. 6255).

Attorney Chiara Roncarolo

Attorney Maurizio Randazzo