WHO
WE ARE
Texans for Indigenous, Heritage & Sustainable Agriculture is a grassroots community of youth activists and organizers who take action together to promote sustainable food sources to ensure food security in the future of a climate-changing planet.
Get to Know Us
We're a network of high school students in Texas and beyond who are passionate about bringing about the future of Sustainable Food. We do this through outreach, education and advocacy. We encourage our peers to learn about traditional, indigenous and heritage farming practices so we can live with a smaller footprint on the planet as climate change impacts our food sources. We use our voices to enact change to eradicate food insecurity and ensure our food supply for the future.
Nimesh
Ramanujakootam
TIHSA Founder & President
Nimesh Ramanujakootam is a junior at Cypress Ranch High School in Cypress, Texas, where he maintains a top class ranking while founding and leading TIHSA. He is an aspiring agriculturalist, anthropologist, and advocate studying the intersection of sustainable practices and indigenous and heritage traditions.
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Nimesh Ramanujakootam founded TIHSA in 9th grade after completing Smithsonian and Yale University coursework on Native American education and indigenous ecology - and after discovering that Harris County, Texas has a documented history of human settlement dating back to 7500 BCE, with indigenous peoples including the Atakapa and Atokisa tribes calling this land home for millennia. Since then, he has grown the organization into a statewide effort, most recently completing the Sustainable Seed Project across all 254 Texas counties.
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Beyond TIHSA, Nimesh conducts original research - authoring an academic paper on climate change, sustainable agriculture, and indigenous knowledge under the mentorship of environmental science expert Mackenzie Homan (MS, École Nationale Supérieure d'Agronomie de Montpellier), earning college credit through UC Irvine's Division of Continuing Education. He completed the Concord Review High School History Camp, an intensive research and writing program for secondary students. He has participated in programs with the USDA, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the World Bank, and the United Nations, and has earned college credits through Lewis & Clark Community College (archaeology) and UC Irvine. He is an incoming 2026 Yale Young Global Scholars fellow in the Solving Global Challenges track.
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In addition to TIHSA, Nimesh serves as Secretary of the Harris County 4-H Council - one of the largest 4-H county programs in Texas - and as Vice President of his school's Model United Nations club and President of the Chess Club. He is a member of the National Honor Society and Spanish National Honor Society, and a recipient of the College Board National Recognition Program Award.
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Contact: RNIMESH@TIHSA.ORG
