Sharecropping became a widespread agricultural practice during Reconstruction. Sharecropping is a system of farming in which a landowner provides land, seed, and other inputs to a tenant farmer, who then works the land and shares a portion of the harvest with the landowner. Sharecropping became popular in the South after the Civil War because it allowed landowners to continue to farm their land without having to pay for labor. It also allowed freed slaves to become farmers without having to own land. However, sharecropping was often exploitative, and many sharecroppers found themselves in debt to the landowners.