The legal regulation of the sharecropping contract, “A Study in Iraqi Law”

Abstract

     The current paper has included the concept of sharecropping, where the researcher has concluded that sharecropping is a contract between the owner of barren land or planted with trees and the farmer to cultivate this land, provided that the rent is a certain percentage of the same crop resulting from the land, and the provisions of this contract are a mixture consisting mostly of the provisions of the ordinary lease of agricultural lands, which the legislator favored. The others are represented by the provisions of the company contract. Both parties to this contract have obligations under both the effective Iraqi Civil Law No. (40) of 1951 and the effective Iraqi Agrarian Reform Law No. (117) of 1970, perhaps the most important of which is the obligation of the land owner to deliver it to the farmer, the farmer’s obligation to direct and control the land owner, and other obligations. Finally, the study has showed the ways to terminate the sharecropping contract in light of the Iraqi civil law in force, including: termination of the sharecropping contract by one of parties due to the other party’s breach of his obligations or the farmer’s inability to farm, and termination of the sharecropping contract by the farmer’s heirs when the contract becomes burdensome for them. The study has also discussed the ways to terminate this contract in light of the Iraqi agricultural reform law in force, the most important of which are: canceling agricultural contracts and ending sharecropping due to the farmer’s breach of his fundamental obligations.