Sharefarming at the Turn of the 21st Century

As its title suggests much of this book has been devoted to uncovering the hidden history of sharefarming. It has been hidden for a variety of reasons, not least because until the end of the twentieth century there has been no systematic attempt to record its incidence, despite the fact that the state has been collecting agricultural statistics since the nineteenth century.1 This chapter discusses some of the limitations of government statistics and shows how they can effectively hide the presence of sharefarming. In order to attempt a more accurate quantitative assessment of the extent of sharefarming at the start of the twenty-first century, we present the results of a contemporary survey of the extent of sharefarming in 2007.