ABSTRACT
A characteristic feature of all countries of the region has been that agricultural activity has changed little over the past 1000 years until the time of the Second World War. In Iran, agriculture has been dominated by the production of cereal crops for small scale local economies. Until recently agriculture has provided the major source of national income in all the countries of the Middle East. Indeed, it is only in the last 40 years, with the growth of oil revenues and industrialization that the relative importance of agriculture in economies of a few favoured countries has begun to decline. Since the Second World War Iranian agriculture has been subjected to a number of pressures which have influenced its development. Agriculture has always been important to the Iranian economy in terms of GNP, although since the 1960s it has declined relatively as industrial and oil sectors have expanded. Modernization has also been associated with the growing use of commercial fertilizers.
