Historical records suggest that the cultivation of hulled wheat—wheat varieties with non-threshable grain, such as emmer and einkorn—began in the Fertile Crescent some 10,000 years ago. Together with barley, emmer was the dominant crop in the ancient Near East and later spread to Europe. The hulled wheat has almost disappeared throughout Europe and the Middle East in the second half of the twentieth century—surviving only in isolated areas in the face of agricultural modernization, market forces, high yield expectations, and national regulations that limit availability, desirability and marketability of hulled wheat. The loss of these varieties has profound implications not only for agricultural biodiversity, but for regional and global food security. Despite the odds, small farmers in Turkey still grow hulled wheat for food, for household consumption, market sales and as animal feed. In fact, the cultivated areas have increased in recent years in Turkey’s northeast, such as Kastamonu, after a significant reduction in the last four decades. Some of the factors for the revival and renewed interest in hulled wheat in Turkey can be linked to market mechanisms, direct marketing to urban consumers who look for healthy and minimally processed food, the emergence of niche markets and rising market prices for hulled wheat. This paper argues that, in the case of hulled wheat, market mechanisms have contributed to the conservation of agricultural biodiversity in complex ways. Relying on ethnographic and archival research in Turkey carried out 2007, 2009 and 2010, this paper demonstrates that market-mechanisms, especially in the form of marketing traditional crop products, provide an opportunity for the conservation of agricultural biodiversity. However, the emergence and maintenance of markets also depends on external interventions to manipulate consumer demand. With its investigation of the complex factors that have led to the revival of hulled wheat in Turkey and the effects of market mechanisms for the conservation of hulled wheat and livelihoods, this paper contributes to debates on food security and the future of agriculture in the Middle East.