Agriculture was central in the economy of ancient Greece, as it comprised the bulk of production and exchange. Nearly 80% of the population was involved in this activity.As estimated by L. Migeotte, L'Économie des cités grecques, p. 55.

Background Written sources

Most texts in the ancient Greek language about agriculture are lost, except two botany texts by Theophrastus (Historia Plantarum or Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, both written 350~287 BCE), and Hesiod's poem Works and Days ( 700 BCE). In addition, Oeconomicus (from which book title the modern science of economics took its name), written by Xenophon around 360 BCE, is a Socratic dialogue principally about household management and agriculture.

The main texts are mostly from the Roman agronomists: Cato the Elder's De agri cultura, Columella's De re rustica, Marcus Terentius Varro and Palladius. Varro mentions at least fifty Greek authors whose works are now lost, such as the agricultural treatise Rusticatio (attributed to Mago the Carthaginian, originally written in Punic and later translated into Greek and Latin). Scholars speculate whether this text may have been an early source for agricultural traditions in the Near East and Classical world. Ancient Greek agronomy was also influenced by Babylonian agriculture through the work of 4th-century writer Vindonius Anatolius, who in turn influenced the 7th-century writer Cassianus Bassus. Bassus' Eclogae de re rustica was excerpted in the Geoponika, a surviving Byzantine text created during the reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus () and later translated into Arabic, Syriac and Armenian. Some additional information on agriculture in Roman Greece may be found in Pliny the Elder's encyclopaedia Natural History (77–79 CE).

Other than that, indirect evidence about the kind of food the ancient Greeks produced and traded might be inferred from mentions of dietary practices in literary texts, such as the Odyssey and Iliad, or more historical narratives such as the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. Yet, using such written sources about food to hypothesise about agriculture comes with a high level of uncertainty.

Archaeological record Aside from written sources, archaeology plays an important role in establishing facts and hypotheses around agricultural practices in ancient Greece. On the one hand, human-made tools that have been found may indicate what kinds of crops were grown, how the soil was cultivated, what kind of animal husbandry was practiced where and for what of purposes animals were kept. On the other hand, archaeobotany searches for remains of plants, charcoal, charred seeds and fruits present in stratigraphical layers of ancient settlements, and studies how their inhabitants probably used them in their lives.

For all attempts to match discoveries made by archaeobotanists with text-based sources, caution must be observed that the ancient Greek and Roman terminology used may be difficult to match with modern plant taxonomy's Greco-Latin botanical nomenclature. Kiel University archaeobotanist Helmut J. Kroll (2000) warned:

Differing ways of processing various products result in different kinds of remains that may be rediscovered and analysed. Kroll: "Hulled wheats have to be dehusked, winnowed et cetera before preparing a meal. A lot of residue is connected with these processes. The residues were often burnt and lots of charred plant remains are the result[.] So emmer and einkorn may get charred to a greater extent than bread wheat which is put into the granary and into the pot or onto the millstone without any further processing." This means that the archaeobonatical evidence is not always representative of which crops people in the past actually cultivated and consumed, and common wheat (bread wheat) is underrepresented in the archaeological record of ancient Greece. For similar reasons, common wheat (bread wheat) and durum wheat (macaroni wheat) are often difficult distinguish in practice.

Agricultural products

According to Kroll (2000), evidence from mainland Greece in the 1st millennium BCE suggests "crops of the arable land can be grouped in cereals, millets, pulses, oil and fiber plants and in fruit trees."

Cereals

Amongst cereals, about 7 or 8 different sorts could be distinguished: hulled barley (Hordeum vulgare *vulgare); "naked barley Hordeum vulgare *nudum occurs only in Chalcolithic contexts"); emmer (Triticum dicoccum), einkorn (Triticum monococcum); spelt (Triticum spelta), common/bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) and durum/macaroni wheat (Triticum durum); "these two [are] often put together as naked or freethreshing wheats; emmer, einkorn and spelt are hulled wheats"), oats (Avena species); and rye (Secale cereale).

Of these, emmer and einkorn were the main cereals during Neolithic Greece ( 7000 –  3200 BCE) and Bronze Age mainland (Helladic) Greece) ( 3200 –  1050 BCE). Emmer and einkorn were primarily used for cooked meals, but are not as suitable for bread and pastry. While remains of pure einkorn are typically discovered in Northern Greece and pure emmer more in Central and Southern Greece, they have often been found together. Aside from them, hulled barley also served an important role in this early period (in ancient Greece and elsewhere in the Ancient Near East), as a sacred cereal used in religious offerings, or as the primary ingredient for flat bread, for paps, broses, and gruel.

In the Late Helladic III period ( 1415–1050 BCE), mainland Greece transitioned from the Bronze to the Iron Age. In Iron Age Greece, "naked wheat replaces emmer and einkorn as the main cereal besides barley." By the end of the 1st millennium BCE, common wheat (bread wheat) had become the main cereal of Greece and the Greek colonies. This species of cereal is very apt for baking (hence the nickname "bread wheat"), and in 1st-millennium BCE mainland Greece, "the bread oven in the yard or in a special room [was] a characteristic feature of every household." By contrast, ovens were rare in Bronze Age Greece, when hearths were still at the centre of domestic living.

Spelt was much rarer in the 1st millennium BCE, only found mixed with bread wheat in central and southern Greece, but more specifically cultivated in northern Greece in a small scale. Unlike in Bronze and Iron Age Central Europe, spelt, oats and rye have never been a main cereal in Greece. Of the latter two, there is not even evidence that humans ate it; oats and rye might have been used as livestock fodder instead. On the other hand, rye was commonly grown in the Pontus region on the southeastern Black Sea coast. It is possible that rye became a main cereal in the Byzantine period in Thrace, northern Greece and Chalkidiki, but the evidence is limited.

During the early time of Greek history, as shown in the Odyssey, Greek agriculture - and diet - was based on cereals (sitos, though usually translated as wheat, could in fact designate any type of cereal grain). Even if the ancients were aware of the better nutritional value of wheat, the growing of barley was less demanding and more productive. Attempts have been made to calculate Attica grain production in the period, but results have not been conclusive. It did not take long for demand to outpace production capabilities, as arable land was limited. The "tightness" of the land ( / stenokhôría) also explains Greek colonization, and the importance Anatolian cleruchies would have for the Athenian empire in controlling grain provision.

Fruit and vegetables

Grapes, from the Vitis vinifera flowering plant, have been commonly grown in settlements throughout Greece since the Late Neolithic Dimini culture ( 4800~3200 BCE), long before the introduction of the cultivated olive tree Olea europaea in the Late Bronze Age. Grapes do well in the rocky soil, but demand a lot of care. There is a lot of variety in grape pips found throughout prehistoric and classical Greece, and it is difficult to determine when and where grape vines were cultivated, or where wine was collected from the wild. Likewise, it is impossible to determine where the so-called "wine–beer border" was in southeastern Europe; wine was made from grapes, and beer from malt using barley, and remains from both plants can be found everywhere throughout the soil layers of Greece from the 1st millennium BCE.

The Mediterranean coasts of central and southern Greece were well suited for olive trees, out of which olive oil could be made. Olive plantations are a long-term investment: it takes more than twenty years for the tree to provide fruit, and it only fruits every other year. Although the wild olive species Olea oleaster was native to the Mediterranean, it would be the Olea europaea, probably first cultivated in the Levant, that was introduced for large-scale arboriculture in Mycenaean Greece in the Late Bronze Age. According to Greek mythology, it was the goddess Pallas Athena who brought the cultivated olive to the Athenians, and taught them how to mill and press the olives for oil. Archaeobotanist Helmut J. Kroll (2000) stated that olives and olive oil were probably too precious to be traded on a large scale, as there is no evidence of olive pips in Thessaly, the mountains of Epirus, Macedon, and Thrace, outside the range of cultivation of olive trees near the Mediterranean coast. If anything, it was a rare, expensive, luxury product; in the inland regions where olives could not be grown, they were not imported, but replaced by flax (linseed), Camelina sativa (false flax) and poppy instead.

Oil-seed plants such as flax (linseed), sesame, and poppy were also grown. Additional vegetables included cabbage, onion, and garlic.Signe Isager and Jens E. Skydsgaard, Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction, Routledge, 1995 () p.41 Orchards included those of fig, almond, apple, and pear trees.

Legumes

Herbs

Herb gardens in ancient Greece often included sage, mint, thyme, savory, and oregano.

Animal husbandry

Animal husbandry, seen as a sign of power and wealth in the works of Homer, was in fact not well developed in ancient Greece. While the Mycenaean civilization was familiar with the rearing of cattle, the practice was restricted as a result of geographic expansion into less suitable terrain. Goats and sheep quickly became the most common livestock; less difficult to raise and providers of meat, wool, and milk (usually in the form of cheese). Pork and poultry (chicken and geese) were also raised. Oxen were rare and normally used as a work animal, though they were occasionally used as sacrificial animals (see Hecatomb). Donkeys, mules and their mixes were raised as pack or draught animals.

Horses were raised on the plains of Thessaly and Argolis; it was a luxury animal, signifying aristocracy. The Clouds, ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, illustrates the equestrian snobbery of Athenian aristocrats: Pheidippides, the son of the hero is addicted to race-horses and so ruins his father Strepsiades.

It is likely that most farms practiced some limited animal husbandry; poultry or small animals grazing on waste land or fed kitchen scraps. Combined farm/livestock operations also existed, as well as those specializing in livestock. An inscriptionMigeotte, Leopold. L'emprunt public dans les cités grecques. Recueil des documents et analyse critique, Sphinx and Belles Lettres editions, Quebec-Paris, 1984. also mentions a certain Eubolos of Elateia, in Phocis, the owner of 220 head of cattle and horses and at least 1000 sheep and goats. Flocks of sheep were herded between the valley in winter and the mountains in summer. Taxes existed for the transit or stopover of flocks in cities.

Cows were also sometimes raised, although they were not as common as other farm animals.

Forestry