peasants

Peasants are a social class consisting of rural farmers and laborers who work land to produce food. Historically they owned or rented small plots and formed the primary workforce of agrarian economies, supplying crops and services to larger landholders and communities.

In feudal Europe, peasants were often tied to the land and owed obligations to a lord. They could be serfs, villeins, cottars, or free peasants, with rents, labor duties, or tithes that limited mobility and defined rights to land.

Across other regions, arrangements varied. In many parts of Asia and the Americas, peasants paid taxes or performed labor in lieu of rent and relied on customary rights to use land and resources.

Social life centered on villages and customary law, with obligations arranged through local forms of tenure and communal rights to common lands or pastures. Peasant communities maintained routines for sowing, harvesting, and sharing produce.

Industrialization, enclosure, and legal reforms reduced the peasant’s share of land and labor in many regions, leading to migration to towns or transitions to wage labor and smallholder farming under changing property regimes.

Today, peasants often refer to smallholder farmers who cultivate land for subsistence or market crops. They may face insecure land tenure, climate risks, and limited access to credit and markets, while reforms seek to strengthen rights and sustainability.