The Turkish tobacco law enacted in 2002 introduced a contract farming system under which growers sell their tobacco at a predetermined price and quantity to buyers before the planting season. This new system has had an immense impact on the structure of agricultural production in south-eastern Turkey, where an extensive sharecropping system exists. Drawing from my fieldwork in Adıyaman, this paper discusses the ways in which the contract farming system has transformed the social and economic structure in the region through generating new opportunities for some groups, while marginalizing others.