Hillel the Elder, in the first century BCE, used the rule that remittance of debts applies only to debts between Jews, to develop a device known as Prosbul in which the debt is transferred to a Beit Din (religious court).
The rabbis of the Jerusalem Talmud created rules to impose order on the harvesting process including a rule limiting harvesters working on others' land to taking only enough to feed themselves and their families.