Meanings
- uncountableThe practice by which one herder cares for the livestock of another, in return for a percentage of the profits or offspring.
In some cases animals are given out on a shareherding basis, to be cared for by people who live near better grazing lands.
2001, Marguerite Robinson, The Microfinance Revolution: Sustainable Finance for the Poor, →ISBN3 more examples
Describing the shareherding contracts by which young men acquired the wherewithal to marry, he asserted that, "consequently, even in the homes of the poorest New Mexicans, there is never a dearth of the means to satisfy the necessities of life and even to afford the comfort and luxuries of the wealthiest class in the country.
1991, Pobladores: Hispanic Americans of the Ute Frontier, page 175Although the new shareherding arrangements are generally inequitable, and are disliked by herders, they are accepted because the alternative - exclusion from the pastoral economy and society - is even less attractive.
1992, Idriss Jazairy, Mohiuddin Alamgir, John Stanier, The State of World Rural Poverty, →ISBNOverall, the disadvantages of saving in animals (opportunity cost for household labor, liquidity problems, lack of space, and the risks of shareherding) were usually considered to outweigh the advantages (relatively high returns given normal propagation).
1994, María Otero, Elisabeth Rhyne, The New world of microenterprise finance, →ISBN
Origin
From share + herding, by analogy to sharecropping.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
shareherding. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shareherding
“shareherding.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shareherding. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “shareherding,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shareherding.
Source: shareherding on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.