During the Green Revolution in the 1960s, the United States’ invention of modern wheat quickly turned into a tool to control indigenous and ethnic minority communities around the globe. Rows of modern wheat physically replaced diverse food systems. The soils could not keep pace with the grains’ absorption of nutrients, so scientists used lands afar, to test if the chemicals originally designed as weapons for warfare, could supplement the nutrients of depleted earth. Ancestrally, I am the daughter of the land of five rivers: Punjab, India. Our land was one of the first testing sites for this new chemically intensive way of growing wheat. Our elders who already survived 100 years of colonization, who then lived through their state being split in half in the India-Pakistan partition, were now forced to silence their traditionally flavorful, healthy and sustainable food lineages. In 2019 I set out to learn the stories of my elders, asking what grains existed in Punjab before the Green Revolution. Along the way, I stumbled upon many inspiring heritage grain stories seeded in the diverse cultures also suffering from modern agriculture’s legacy. As my mind connected the similarities of these stories, a new market narrative was simultaneously “re-discovering” ancient grains like quinoa, amaranth, millet, spelt. While cookbooks and health aisles celebrated the unmodified grains for their health benefits and sustainable qualities, no one celebrated the communities who protected these grains in spite of historic efforts to erase these “super foods” during periods of colonization and the Green Revolution. Because I learned food can be used as a tool for political and economic transformation, I established Revolutionary Grains as a 501c3 in 2023, dreaming of how we can use diverse grains to transform our food system towards justice by giving agency back to the communities who protect the delicious, nutritious, drought-tolerant grains of our globe. This re-imagination of the global grain supply chain invites you to move beyond market shelves and into the sensuous embrace of story. By joining our community, you are stepping into an active solidarity lattice of cross-cultural communities and food systems working in synchronicity with both the pleads and wonders of our biodiverse earth.

During the Green Revolution in the 1960s, the United States’ invention of modern wheat quickly turned into a tool to control indigenous and ethnic minority communities around the globe. Rows of modern wheat physically replaced diverse food systems. The soils could not keep pace with the grains’ absorption of nutrients, so scientists used lands afar, to test if the chemicals originally designed as weapons for warfare, could supplement the nutrients of depleted earth. Ancestrally, I am the daughter of the land of five rivers: Punjab, India. Our land was one of the first testing sites for this new chemically intensive way of growing wheat. Our elders who already survived 100 years of colonization, who then lived through their state being split in half in the India-Pakistan partition, were now forced to silence their traditionally flavorful, healthy and sustainable food lineages. In 2019 I set out to learn the stories of my elders, asking what grains existed in Punjab before the Green Revolution. Along the way, I stumbled upon many inspiring heritage grain stories seeded in the diverse cultures also suffering from modern agriculture’s legacy. As my mind connected the similarities of these stories, a new market narrative was simultaneously “re-discovering” ancient grains like quinoa, amaranth, millet, spelt. While cookbooks and health aisles celebrated the unmodified grains for their health benefits and sustainable qualities, no one celebrated the communities who protected these grains in spite of historic efforts to erase these “super foods” during periods of colonization and the Green Revolution. Because I learned food can be used as a tool for political and economic transformation, I established Revolutionary Grains as a 501c3 in 2023, dreaming of how we can use diverse grains to transform our food system towards justice by giving agency back to the communities who protect the delicious, nutritious, drought-tolerant grains of our globe. This re-imagination of the global grain supply chain invites you to move beyond market shelves and into the sensuous embrace of story. By joining our community, you are stepping into an active solidarity lattice of cross-cultural communities and food systems working in synchronicity with both the pleads and wonders of our biodiverse earth.

With a loving welcome, Simren Kaur Rai