Agriculture was independently in multiple places around the world. In the Americas, there are four areas where agriculture developed originally. In the Mississippi watershed, people developed an agricultural complex based on squash, sunflowers, goosefoot, marsh elder, little barley, maygrass, and a few other plants; in Mesoamerica, they farmed maize, a different type of squash, beans, peppers, tomatoes, avocados, etc.; in the Andes, the dominant crops were potatoes, quinoa, other beans and squashes, etc.; and in the Amazon agriculture was based on root-crops like sweet potatoes and cassava. Over time, the agricultural products that originate in these four areas began to be spread around, not just within the Americas but outside the Americas too (before the Columbian Exchange kicked in post-1500, the main agricultural product of the Americas to find widespread use outside of North and South America are sweet potatoes, that had become a major crop throughout much of Polynesia by around 700 CE).

Old World cultures had their own agricultural systems based on things like wheat, millet, rice, sorghum, taro, sago, etc.