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Farm in SE Australia is growing native grains for flour and bread
- sytringy05 6y agoI think I saw this on a tv show recently (maybe catalyst on the ABC). They said it was a $1000 loaf, given how much effort went into getting the grain.
- dumbfoundded 6y agoGenerally, these types of issues are the easiest to solve. The genetics side is a much tougher, longer scale problem. If they can make marginal land productive, someone will figure out how to build the processing equipment.
- oska 6y agoI just had a look through summaries of the 2020 Catalyst episodes and couldn't find it. Also looked through recent Landline episodes back to March. I'd be interested in seeing a more sceptical take, as I can appreciate extracting the seeds might be very challenging (as is touched on in the submitted piece).
- ximeng 6y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/sep/23/1500-sandwich-from-scratch-andy-george-youtube-food-supply-chain https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/sep/23/1500-sa... 1500 dollar sandwich?
- ImaCake 6y agoI listened to the audio book of it back in January and it has completed changed how I see the Australian landscape and it's aboriginal people. What is interesting is that the topics and ideas in the book are not new among academics (although some arguments Pascoe makes are controversial). Pascoe's book has popularised these ideas and spread them to the public. I hope the ideas gain traction here, we would do well to integrate some of these ideas into our farming practices and our views on Australian aborigines.
- mb_72 6y agoIf you are interested in an alternate legal / law view I can't recommend this book enough: https://www.amazon.com.au/Aboriginal-Peoples-Colonialism-International-Law/dp/1138685968 https://www.amazon.com.au/Aboriginal-Peoples-Colonialism-Int... The author is aboriginal; reading it completely changed my view on colonialism and the rule of law in Australia (speaking as a white person born in Australia to one immigrant and one 'local' parent).
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoAm I the only one seeing these absurd prices for it? Kindle $78.53 Hardcover from $197.00
- ruytlm 6y agoAt a guess, it's probably used as a textbook in some university courses (presumably law). This leads to absurd pricing, because students are a captive market; you want to do the course, you have to buy this book.
- mb_72 6y agoThat is exactly what is happening in this case; the author is a lecturer at a South Australian educational institution, and the book is a textbook for one of the courses there. I'm looking into studying Australian Aboriginal / Indigenous history, and thought I'd better get acquainted with some of the source material.
- interestica 6y agowow. does it come with a kindle?
- LilBytes 6y agoNo but it does come with a law degree.
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- danieltillett 6y agoThere are so many more interesting Australian native food plants that make more sense to concentrate on growing than native grasses. Not the most productive use of time and land.
- mega_dingus 6y agoSuch as, and how/why?
- dunco 6y agoCan you elaborate on this? One of the main benefits of growing these grasses/grains is that they can grow on land that is otherwise unproductive (we have a lot of this in Australia). Do you have knowledge that this is not the case?
- haihaibye 6y agoFor commercial farming the question is: does it have a high enough yield to justify the harvesting cost? If it doesn't, it doesn't matter if the land is free.
- dunco 6y agoYou're right, but I think it is way too early to make a call on that. I would expect the cost to diminish dramatically over time with selective breeding and the knowledge gained through experience.
- danieltillett 6y agoGrains are not able to be productive without huge inputs of fertilisers and agrochemicals. These marginal lands would be better off left as grazing country. One thing we could do is improve the meat conversion of kangaroos and wallabies. Some serious selective breeding could provide a commercially viable way to use these lands without the environmental damage resulting from cattle and sheep.
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- mb_72 6y agoThis is well-written article discussing Bruce Pascoe's book "Dark Emu", issues surrounding his Aboriginal heritage and how he's been criticised by certain right-wingers in Australia: https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/russell-marks/2020/05/2020/1580868886/taking-sides-over-dark-emu#mtr https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/russell-marks/2020/05/202... (Pascoe is the farmer in the linked article).
- thomasfromcdnjs 6y agoThat book is sitting right in front of me, funny to see it mentioned here. My sister brought it home the other day from her work, she is an Aboriginal arts officer who works at the thetorch.org.au/about/ (arts program for prisoners and ex-offenders) At family gatherings we don't really eat any native plants, mostly Taro. Where we are from in FNQ (coastal), we eat a lot of turtle, periwinkles, mudcrab and other shell fish. Fun fact: On your native tribal land in Australia you are allowed to eat green sea turtle and dugong which is illegal for the rest of Australia. In my life so far, I've had some green sea turtles but never heard of anyone eating a dugong.
- Baeocystin 6y agoThey're both endangered animals. Legal or not, I have to ask- why?
- thomasfromcdnjs 6y agoI don't really have enough time to flesh out a thorough answer. But I would say in short, most of the culture was completely destroyed, and the turtle population of sea turtles shortly after by modernity (fishing/pollution). Cuisine generally being a pillar of most cultures, some perhaps think it may be a little unfair to also take that away. They could easily ban the number one killer of turtles, trawlers, in larger portions of their habitats. Because aboriginals are also a low socioeconomic class of Australia, they don't even own boats so the likelihood of them even catching a fraction of what the fishing industry kills is quite low. ---- Another reason why? Food. Take the example of Efate island in Vanuatu. It is the main hub for the native populations, but also now a tax haven and a tourist destination. The island itself has probably ~50,000 Ni-van (natives) who make a minimum wage of $95 a week. The price of western goods is marked up more than it cost in Australia, so a beer might cost $8. So although they work, to get ahead and enjoy themselves they usually also try to eat off the land. Fishing being one of their main staples. But with the influx of resorts over the decades, the government declared that you essentially can't fish anywhere in surrounding waters around the island. Mostly because they wanted as many fish as possible for the snorkeling business for the resorts. Think gentrification but not only making the cost of living too expensive but also taking away the food supply. ---- One last edit. Most aboriginals only eat turtle/dugong on special occasions e.g. an elders 60th The hunting laws also only allow traditional methods, spear and hand. (people do use engine boats though) It is also in the best interest of the indiginous to not kill off the populations. From my own personal experience this seems to be respected. I don't have any strong opinions myself, sociological nuance isn't quite science. A lot of Australian wildlife conservation momentum comes through aboriginals who fight to protect heritage. I'm sure, at the end of the day there is some immeasurable balance of allowing them to live their culture, eat and protect.
- baybal2 6y agoIn general, I find it weird how countries with western cultures have nearly forgotten all staple foods except for rice, possibly oats as an oatmeal, and white/red beans. It was a big surprise for me when I arrived to Canada that barley, spelt, millet, and buckwheat were so hard to find. Right now, I have 11-12 different boxes of grains and pulses in my kitchen drawer, and I am not feeling much likes for exotic foods.
- baq 6y agoi'd say that's an expected consequence of rules of capitalism - the most efficient (capital-wise) crops are the ones left standing. if the cost function was designed differently, the outcome would also be different. for an extreme example, look at bananas - one kind available, under pressure by some kind of a disease and that's the second time this is happening (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_disease).
- Xylakant 6y agoThat’s a bit of a generalization. I’m from germany, so definitely a western culture. At the moment I have at least 10 different kinds of flour from at least five kinds of grain (including spelt, buckwheat and millet) in my cupboard. This is certainly above average, but neither of them is hard to find. They’re all from the store next door. At least buckwheat and spelt are widely available in all supermarkets, some more exotic grains like emmer or einkorn are available in most organic supermarkets. What’s harder to get are different types of flour, some of which are fairly regional. For example “Spätzlemehl” is commonly available in the south, but generally unavailable in the north. Italian Tenero 00 flour is only available in select places. Whenever Swiss friends come visit I ask them to bring some Ruchmehl - Standard Swiss wheat flour - as it’s generally unavailable in Germany (unless you order online at your friendly local mill)
- shusson 6y agoI can say moving from Sydney to Amsterdam, there does seem to be a lot more variety of grains at the average supermarket. Especially buckwheat, spelt and rye.
- KorematsuFred 6y agoOne my high school project in India was to do a detailed study of "native" rice varieties from my village. I ended up winning a national level prize for it. My village had over 30 different varieties of rice which the central planners of country would dub as "backward". Backed by centralized international bodies such as UN, WHO etc. (probably pressure from US etc.) we were told these native varieties were inefficient and lacked nutrients. We were then provided seeds of "higbreed" rice which gave us lot more yield per acre for couple of years and reached much lower yield levels after 5 years. It tastes as shit. Since the original seeds were lost except in seed banks maintained by local temples it was not possible to bring back our old varieties. Now the government begs us to grow back the native rice. We can't as rice farming has become economically less attractive to us.
- luckylion 6y agoSo you can't use seeds from the seed banks to grow rice? What are the seed banks for then, are they just ceremonial?
- stuaxo 6y agoRead to the end, it's because it's uneconomical.
- luckylion 6y agoI did read that, but it's conflicting with the previous paragraph ending with it was not possible to bring back our old varieties. I understood that to mean that they were not able to bring back the old varieties (at some point in the past) and now the government wants them to re-grow them, but they've moved on from rice-farming because it's not economical (because of lower yields).
- kjs3 6y agoI don't think any of that is conflicting; probably just a quirk of language. Agriculture requires infrastructure and space. If you've moved on from rice farming because it's not economical, it might not be possible to bring back old varieties because the infrastructure is gone, or the rice paddys have been covered with buildings, or some such.
- twic 6y ago> We found a plant, we still don’t know what it is, which came back after the fires, a lovely little onion type thing, absolutely sensational. Now i want to know about the onion!
- twic 6y agoThe article skims over Pascoe's conflict with Bolt and Cashman. If you're interested in the agriculture, then that's for the best, but otherwise, here's a view on it: https://www.adelaidereview.com.au/latest/2020/01/24/bruce-pascoe-dark-emu-history-wars/ https://www.adelaidereview.com.au/latest/2020/01/24/bruce-pa...
- golemiprague 6y agoTypical over romanticism of Australian aboriginals ways, this article is a political piece as is always from the Guardian. The truth is, there is nothing we can learn form the aboriginals because they were so under developed and even as "natives" they are the most under achieving group of people in the world. They didn't fight like the Maoris or native Americans, they didn't have any interesting buildings or civilisations like the Mayans or Aztecs, they don't have the musical or physical exceptionality of Africans and the list goes on. They are just a group that had to do a 50k years leap in one day and they make me sad every time I see them barely adjusting to modern living. We don't learn anything from humans who lived 50k years ago and we got nothing to learn here, waste of time. Keep producing the grains we already got, much more advanced and sustaining billions of people around the world easily.