Final answer:
The crop lien system was the practice where farmers used their future crops as collateral for loans, trapping them in debt due to high interest rates and payment hierarchies favoring others over laborers.
Step-by-step explanation:
The system in which farmers were forced to take up the growing of cotton and pledged a part of the crop as collateral if the farmers' debt was not paid is known as the crop lien system. This was a common practice throughout the South post-Civil War, designed to provide credit to farmers.
However, this system often trapped farmers in a cycle of debt due to the high interest rates and prioritization of payment to merchants, landlords, and banks over the laborers themselves.
The crop lien system enabled the financing of agricultural operations through future crops serving as collateral, but it severely limited the potential for financial prosperity among farmers, particularly sharecroppers who were bound by these liens to plant cotton, a cash crop that could be reliably sold for cash each harvest.