Tenancy in the Context of Irrigation Uncertainty-Role of the Leading Input in Shaping Institutions

The authors' analysis of data collected from village surveys in Kanyakumari district in Tamil Nadu shows that both the incidence and form of tenancy are governed by the irrigation situation and the? changes in it. Irrigation uncertainty leads to a lower incidence of tenancy and the form itself changes in the direction of sharecropping. In understanding the terms of contract in the land market, a unified treatment of the land and labour markets is helpful But its application is limited to the case when the crop cultivated is a subsistence crop. Such unified treatment is not essential for the understanding of land contracts when the crop cultivated is a cash crop.