The metayage system is the cultivation of land for a proprietor by one who receives a proportion of the produce, as a kind of sharecropping. Another class of land tenancy in France is named fermage, whereby the rent is paid annually in banknotes. A farm operating under métayage was known as a métairie, the origin of some place names in areas where the system was used, such as Metairie, Louisiana.

Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be confused with tenant farming, providing the tenant a higher economic and social status.