Abstract
An extensive and fertile theme, the vertical study of agricultural relations and, in particular, agricultural contracts under their evolution and perspectives, both globally and domestically, is fundamental nowadays, especially considering the food crisis caused by the speedy and unrestrained population growth that has rendered traditional production and distribution techniques improper to address global demand.
Marked by popular fights and sacrifices, the history of civilization is usually studied in the light of the development of agricultural activities that have invariably followed up the oscillations of successive technological and social forward and backward movements. The historical analysis performed herein aims to examine the progress in the relationships between the land owner and the free man that cultivates the land along time, to better understand the origin of the treatment rendered by contemporary legislations to the subject and the correct alignment of the existing options, which will permit to pinpoint among an array of alternatives the one that will be the basis for eventual normative changes with the purpose of redirecting the legislation to a new reality.