ABSTRACT
Agricultural conditions, systems, and products differ strikingly across the Middle East. Landscapes vary from irrigated plots in the Nile Valley to Mediterranean croplands and fruit orchards in the Levant and from extensive wheat fields in interior Anatolia to desert rangelands of Arabia's wandering herdsmen. Fish farming is an important aspect of land use in Israel and Egypt and has begun in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. With major financial aid from the United States and international Jewish agencies, Israel devotes even higher capital inputs per unit area to land reclamation and improvement than do the Gulf states with oil income but desert environments. Traditional livestock herding by nomadic pastoralists is steadily declining not only in the deserts of oil states but also in the mountains of Iran, Turkey, and Central Asia. Wheat is found throughout the region, leading all crops in area sown. More widespread are wheat and barley and other crops that thrive in sectors with limited precipitation.
