Bruce Pascoe continues his great news for all farmers.
This old Sheila, not that old Sheila. That old woman, that old black woman, who had the genius to take a handful of seed and think about it, wake up in the morning and say, “I’m gonna grind that, see what happens.” She grinds it. She gets flour, and then she says, “I’m gonna mix that with water, see what happens, and now I’m gonna put it on the fire, see what happens.” She made bread. That woman. That genius, and we don’t celebrate her at all in this country, and we should because these grasses that these people are using are perennial. Their root mass is fantastic, compared to what you see above the soil. What is it? Seven, eight, nine times below the soil? For a country that is desperately trying to find a way of reducing carbon emissions, these are plants that are gonna be serious. People are gonna make a lot of money and be going down to new car places and buying Mercedes Benz on the back of Australian aboriginal domesticated grains because you’ll be getting benefits, carbon benefits in the future, for these kind of plants. So, I really hope that when that happens and you’re driving your Mercedes out of the Benz shop, that you remember where it came from, where that knowledge came from.
2 Responses
Hi Bruce, Can you please tell me where can you buy seed for these Australian Aboriginal domesticated grains
Hi Jessica, Whilst there are quite a few retailing native perennials, it is not always easy to establish them. Many are also very expensive.
We do find often when a farmer chooses to stop using chemical applications that the native species do return of their own accord.