The Near East includes Arabia in Southwest Asia, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt and Sudan in Northeast Africa. Modern people here came into being about 20,000 years ago, and agriculture began from 12000 to 1 1000 years ago. As we all know, in Mesopotamia and Egypt, highly developed ancient civilizations appeared very early, which became the cornerstone of agricultural development. Studies show that in the ancient Near East, people's main foods were wheat, barley, sheep and goats. Wheat and barley have been planted for more than ten thousand years. Israel and Jordan may be the origin of barley. In Mesopotamia, barley was once the main crop in ancient times, especially in the south. 4300 years ago, barley almost completely replaced wheat, mainly because the salt content of irrigation water is getting higher and higher, and the salt tolerance of wheat is not as good as that of barley. In Egypt, Ermai was once planted more.

The Near East is a very important center of crop origin. Vavilov calls it the pre-Asian origin center, which mainly refers to the whole of Asia Minor, including Transcaucasia and Iran. Vavilov proposed that 84 species originated in the Near East in his Center for the Origin of Main Cultivated Plants in the World. Wild barley, wild single-grain wheat, wild double-grain wheat, durum wheat, cone wheat, oriental wheat, Persian wheat (Armenia and Georgia) and Teemo Fivey wheat are widely distributed in this area, and there are also awnless groups of local common wheat and many species of Aegilops, the ancestor of wheat. It has been recognized that wheat and barley, two important food crops, originated in the Near East. Rye, oats, chickpeas, lentils, lupines, broad beans, peas, arrow peas and beets also originated here. Fruit trees include figs, pomegranates, grapes, European sweet cherries, almonds and some kinds of apples and pears. Vegetables native to this area include carrots, kale and lettuce. There are also important forage alfalfa and Persian clover, important oil crops flax and sesame (endemic to the region), and melons, pumpkins, poppies and coriander also originated here.