Short answer. Yes. Article 1461 of the Civil Code provides that things having a potential existence may be the object of a contract of sale. Selling next season's harvest is valid, though its efficacy is subject to the condition that the thing will come into existence; only the sale of a vain hope is void.
What the law says
Things having a potential existence may be the object of the contract of sale. The efficacy of the sale of a mere hope or expectancy is deemed subject to the condition that the thing will come into existence. The sale of a vain hope or expectancy is void.
Civil Code, Article 1461 — Sale of Things With Potential Existence. Read the full provision →
Future things can be sold
You do not need to own something already in hand to sell it. Article 1461 opens with the rule that things having a potential existence may be the object of the contract of sale. A crop that a planted field will yield, fruit a tree will bear, offspring an animal will produce, all have potential existence and may lawfully be sold before they exist. The buyer and seller are contracting over something expected to come into being in the ordinary course. This is a normal and useful commercial arrangement, letting farmers and producers sell forward against a harvest still in the ground or a catch still in the sea.
The catch: efficacy depends on the thing coming into existence
Selling a future thing is not the same as guaranteeing it will materialise. The article continues: The efficacy of the sale of a mere hope or expectancy is deemed subject to the condition that the thing will come into existence. So the sale of the expected crop takes full effect only if the crop actually comes to be. Where what is sold is the expected thing itself, and it never comes into existence, the sale does not take effect, because the condition on which its efficacy depends has failed. The parties are contracting on the understanding that nature, or the venture, will deliver the thing.
A real expectancy versus a vain hope
The line the article draws is between a genuine expectancy and an empty one. The sale of a vain hope or expectancy is void. A vain hope is one with no real prospect of ever being realised, a hope in name only. Selling the winnings of a lottery ticket already drawn and lost, or a harvest from land nothing was planted on, is selling nothing. Such a contract has no valid object and cannot stand. The law upholds forward sales of things reasonably expected to exist; it refuses to enforce a bargain over a prospect that was hollow from the start.
Selling the thing versus selling the chance
There is a subtler point worth understanding. Sometimes the parties sell the expected thing, so that no thing means no sale; other times they knowingly sell the chance itself, the hope, with the buyer accepting the risk that little or nothing may result and paying regardless. In the second case the buyer has bought the gamble, and a poor harvest does not undo the sale. Which of the two you have made depends on what you actually agreed. If your intention is to sell forward, it is worth being clear in the contract whether the price is for the produce or for the risk, so expectations match the law's.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Spouses Mariano P. Marasigan and Josefina Leal vs. Chevron Phils., Inc., et al, G.R. No. 184015, February 8, 2012 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Fidela Mananzala vs. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 115101, March 2, 1998 — read the decision on LawPhil →