The Grain Revival Project
Group Members: Carson Noel, Lauren Ames, Sophia Pina-McMahon, Tejas Srikanth
Mad Agriculture's Grain Revival program is a community-based effort to bring ancient and heritage grains and legumes back to our land and kitchens. Partnering with farmers in Colorado, Mad Agriculture has supported crop and market trials for each of these crops in recent years. Now, farmers need help securing the market off-take of the grains and beans that they are growing. The MENV team has been tasked with determining how to incorporate these foods into the local and regional food system using storytelling and branding, farm planning, business finance, and market development. They will engage in farm visits, stakeholder interviews, market research, networking, photo documentation, crop price analysis, and trend forecasting to gather information for the final project deliverable. Their final product will be an online platform that houses all of the information that they collect about the Grain Revival projects. The platform will have information useful to every stakeholder involved in the movement, providing farmers, processing facilities, buyers, consumers, NGO’s, and local governments with education and ways to participate in the movement. Ultimately, the project will support long-term market offtake of local grains and beans, thereby strengthening the regional food system.