A gathering of more than 50 Bundjalung people in Lismore last week focussed on boosting Indigenous participation and agency within the region’s bush food industry.That industry is growing rapidly, with demand for produce such as finger limes, lemon myrtle and wattle seed outstripping supply.At present Indigenous representation in the Australian supply chain — from growers to farm managers and exporters — is less than one per cent, and those at the meeting were determined to find ways to lift that figure.Those present – farmers, students, members of various land councils and local land service personnel and people engaged in bush tucker production – resolved to develop a united Aboriginal voice within industry, and to grow its economic potential.The event was coordinated by Ngulingah Local Aboriginal Land Council in partnership with Ngulingah Nursery and local industry groups Playing with Fire Native Foods and Future Feeders, and facilitated by Rod Williams from Gongan Consulting and SCU’s Gnibi College.It provided a “great opportunity” to bring the Aboriginal community and allies together to explore ideas on developing the sector and on steps to move forward, said the meeting co-ordinator, Joel Orchard, of Future Feeders.Ngulingah Land Council CEO Roxanne Smith later told the Lismore App: “A lot of the bush food industry is built on Aboriginal history, which is our intellectual property, and the purpose of the meeting was to ensure that we are not left behind.“It’s about us doing and getting and being involved, and progressing things for ourselves,” she said.“It’s a bottom-up approach, about us all working together, and not tripping over each other while developing some protocols; supporting each other and not being competitive.”Australian bush foods are a burgeoning multi-million dollar industry, with native plants being used in consumer products ranging from high end restaurant dishes, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, extracts and for their wide ranging biological and chemical compounds.The industry is moving away from wild harvest and research is playing an increasingly important role in developing viable cultivation and post-harvest management systems.“We’re realising we didn’t need to go overseas to find superfoods, we have them right here, which our people have known for centuries,” Roxanne said.“In this region we are blessed because we have some really wonderful foods naturally occurring here: lemon myrtle, coastal wattles, finger limes, curry myrtle, aniseed myrtle (which is absolutely delicious), warrigal greens, sea celery and other succulents, Davidson plum, lilli pilli, the list goes on and on.“A lot of the foods that have gone into commercial production actually belong to this place, so we’re also blessed because we have the opportunity to take a real good advantage of it.“It’s really exciting, because it’s something that, as a group of indigenous people, we can use to actually propel a lot of our programmes, use it to create jobs, and economic parity, which would be amazing. We’d be applying our skills and knowledge to something that we can be very proud of.”A dozen or so people at the meeting formed a working group – the Northern Rivers Aboriginal Bushfoods Industry Steering Committee – to explore capacity building and regional industry development frameworks that align with Indigenous cultural and spiritual values. Not all manufacturers of products containing native foods have acknowledged the centuries of Indigenous understanding behind them; some have used Aboriginal culture in an insensitive way to promote them, Roxanne said.But Joel Orchard says “it is key to the success of this industry to ensure that Aboriginal voices are heard and that cultural and traditional knowledge is respected”.The united new body will help to achieve that. “People can still get on doing what they do,” Roxanne says. “For instance here at Nulingah we are putting in some commercial plantations, and we have an amazing nursery, with 60,000 bush food and medicinal herb plants out at Nimbin Rocks.“We’ve been building that up and doing some great projects with places like Macadamia Castle.“Now we’re going to work out how to help each other continue to grow and be successful.“That’s the main thing.”
