A cereal plant with the ripe ear drooping at the top, roots below — millet, the grain that fed the north long before rice reached it. As a radical it marks the whole agricultural vocabulary: 秋 (autumn), 种 (to sow), 科 (a category, originally grain measured out), 和 (harmony, grain beside a mouth).
Every Chinese child learns 锄禾日当午 — 'hoeing grain under the noon sun' — the opening of a Tang poem about the farmer's sweat in every bowl of rice. 禾苗 is the young seedling, the image of anything tender that must be allowed to grow at its own pace.
A GRAIN stalk so heavy with its ear that the top bends over.
和 (harmony, and) is grain 禾 beside a mouth 口 — everyone fed is everyone at peace.