Ramona Farms cultivates crops that connect Gila River Indian Community members with their history and heritage
Traditional food ways feed the Gila River Indian community spirit, reconnecting people to their history and language. Michael Preston,Youth Council Coordinator at Gila River Indian Community, works with the community’s youth through many avenues, including food.
Ramona Button is an Akimel O’odham farmer who, since the 1970s, has been working to bring back traditional food ways and reconnect people to their culinary history. She and her husband Terry, along with their family, cultivate a range of crops here on Ramona Farms, including tepary beans, ancient varieties of corn and heritage wheat.
Ramona Farms is located on the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, which is home to about 15,000 people. This is a close-knit community and the Buttons are continuing a centuries-old Akimel O'Odham tradition of agriculture, teaching people about the tribe’s culinary history and traditional foodways.
Ramona began cultivating tepary beans at the request of her community’s elders. The tepary bean is one of the most valuable pieces of Akimel O'odham culture and history as indigenous peoples of the Sonoran desert. It has been the staple food for the Akimel O'odham during time of feast and famine for centuries and thanks to Ramona, it’s coming back. Ramona Farms cultivates white, brown and black tepary as well as Pima 60-day corn, Hopi blue, Su’pai red corn, pink corn …
Wheat has been grown along the banks of the Gila River for hundreds of years and Ramona Farms cultivates three varieties: Durum, Pima Club and White Sonora. The White Sonoran variety was brought to this region about 300 years ago by Padre Eusabio Kino, a Jesuit missionary from Spain and today these varieties are ground into flour, available as whole wheat berries and also made into pinole, or Huun Haaki' chu'i, an ancient “fast food.”
Traditional food ways feed the Gila River Indian community spirit, reconnecting people to their history and language.
Take a tour of Ramona Farms below:
