"Order of Seeds") is the first of the six orders, or major divisions, of the Mishnah, Tosefta, and the Talmud, and, apart from the first tractate which concerns the rules for prayers and blessings, primarily deals with the laws of agricultural produce and tithes of the Torah which apply in the Land of Israel, in both their religious and social aspects.
It explains and elaborates upon the Torah commandments regarding to the rights of the poor and of the Kohens and Levites to the produce of the harvest, as well as the rules and regulations concerning the cultivation and sowing of fields, gardens and orchards.
These laws are dealt with in eleven tractates, each of which concerns a separate aspect of the general subject for which this Order is named.
[1] One explanation for the inclusion of the tractate Berakhot, whose topic is seemingly quite different from the remainder of the tractates of the Order is given in the Talmud itself (Shabbat 31a), by Shimon ben Lakish, who homiletically states that the first of the six terms in a verse in Isaiah (Isa 33:6) – the word emunah "faith" corresponds to Seder Zeraim.
Zeraim was compiled and edited between 200–220 CE by Rabbi Yehudah haNasi and his colleagues, as part of the Mishnah, the first major composition of Jewish law and ethics based on the Oral Torah.