Late nineteenth-century Iran was characterized by agro-environmental crises and social protests. Furthermore, European powers, local notables, as well as the provincial and central governments all vied for control of the natural resources. This paper inquires into the origins of a string of urban protests that occurred in 1871-1892. It argues, among other things, that the twin processes of capitalism and imperialism undermined the moral economy of agricultural production and resource use in a semi-feudal social system. The paper traces the growth of dissatisfaction from the early 1870s when the Qajar state enacted a series of reforms aimed at centralizing government bureaucracy. As the central government raised taxes on the provinces, the governors and the landed elites engineered massive hoarding and price gouging in essential goods such as grain. Meanwhile the outbreak of locusts and epidemics, as well as a string of chronic famines wreaked havoc throughout the country. The government was, however, unable to quickly or systematically alleviate public suffering. Instead, it began from the late 1880s to grant European firms a number of concessions over agricultural production, forests, mines, and fisheries. The protests over government policy came to a head in the Anti-Tobacco Regie Movement of 1891-1892 when a nationwide embargo on the use of tobacco succeeded to reverse a British tobacco concession. In this paper, therefore, I look at the political ecology of commercial agriculture and its relations to conflict between foreign powers, the government, local notables, and the protesters. For this reason, this paper draws from theories of political ecology developed by environmental historians such as Alf Hornborg, J. R. McNeill, and Joan Martinez-Alier. In writing this paper, I have drawn from eighteen months of archival research in England and Iran. The majority of the sources I am utilizing have not been used by other scholars.