I 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.
Pascoe's conclusions aren't really controversial in historical circles, only political ones. The primary sources quoted in the book make it pretty there was more extensive agriculture going on than most Australians think.
And, for the non-Australians in here, the lack of agriculture is essentially one of the boxes you have to tick before you can invoke the concept of Terra Nullius, which is what the English relied on to claim Australia.
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).
At 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.
That 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.
One 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.
I have mixed feelings about this - thanks to the adoption of some modern agricultural practices India can today feed their population without being dependent on foreign countries. If I remember my history / geography lessons right:
- The 'green' revolution made us self-sufficient in growing enough food to feed our large population.
- The 'white' revolution made India one of the largest producer of milk and diary products in the world today.
- The 'yellow' revolution made it possible for India to be the largest producers of vegetable oil in the world today.
But it is true that the cost of this was the slow demise of many indigenous crops. However, with a growing economy (well, now it is in a downward spiral), many indigenous crops are making a return in India albeit they are costlier and not as affordable as some of the cheaper white rice.
> “Millets have been a part of Indian diet for a long time. However, the influence of Western food habits and the goverment’s green revolution that pushed for rice and wheat, reduced the production as well as the consumption of millets. But, efforts of some State governments like Karnataka in popularising millets has helped in rekindling the value of these grains.”
Sounds like one of hundreds or thousands Of similar stories across the world over the last 100 years, as “modern” western farming techniques and seeds were pushed on communities around the world. James C Scott’s Seeing Like a State really opened my eyes about the history and reasons for this.
I 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).
I 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.
I 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.
Generally, 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.
I 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).
In 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.
That’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)
Germany is really good about this. So is Poland in fact. But UK is like a desert of food variety. You want to buy some barley? Well, maybe the "health" isle in a supermarket will have some in 300g packets, because no one buys this stuff. Flour? Like.....white or wholemeal? That's about it. There are different brands of course but the variety is exactly zero.
And don't get me started on meat and butchers - I'm conviced that British people don't know what an actual butcher is. The biggest joke are always "butchers" in a meat isle like in Morrisons, who are only allowed to serve very specific cuts of the 4-5 meats they have on display. Try asking if you can just buy some bones for broth(sorry mate, not allowed to sell them), or the horror ask if you can buy some giblets, like chicken hearts or stomachs - nope, they never get them from "the factory". So....are you a butcher? Or a glorified cashier? And it's the same even at proper markets, where you'd think they'd have more flexibility - "nah mate, health and safety mate, can't sell you these". Just piss off.
Butchers aren't allowed to sell beef bones, due to the 1990s BSE crisis, but the others are no problem. They may well not stock them, especially in a supermarket, where they are somewhere between a glorified cashier and an actual butcher. You would need to build a relationship with a local butcher to make your unusual requests worthwhile -- it might mean he orders them, or that while preparing the meat he doesn't throw them in the bin (at which point, they can't be sold).
> "Nah mate, health and safety mate, can't sell you these"
This is modern British English for "I don't want to" or "it's not worth my time" or "go away, you are complicated". It's rarely an actual rule.
> Flour? Like.....white or wholemeal? That's about it. There are different brands of course but the variety is exactly zero.
That's a slight exaggeration. My local large supermarket in London would have in normal times (i.e. a few months ago) in the baking aisle: several brands of white and wholemeal flour as mentioned, 00-grade pizza flour, self-raising and strong bread flour, malted and cake flour, rye flour, and a gluten-free flour-like substance. Elsewhere in the shop you'll likely find rice flour, chickpea flour etc.
There is also a healthfood shop where it's actively hard to find the (Shipton Mill and Doves Farm organic) wheat flours among the profusion of Spelt, Barley, Kamut, etc flours)
I live in London, so I appreciate the difference, but I can get literally any food and ingredient I want walking distance from my house. Only thing is, none of it's from the supermarkets. Do you not have a local butcher or whatever around you?
There is one or two on the local high street, but my experience was the same - I tried ordering some chicken hearts, nope, they don't get them, can't order them, guy had no idea how you'd go about getting any. Ok fine - can I buy some rabbit? Or pheasant? They can bring some frozen one in for me - great, not really interested. Ok, how about like chicken carcass and beef bones to make stock out of? Nope, they don't sell those.
Ugh, sorry to hear that! You could probably order online? There's loads of food suppliers, both retail and trade, that have setup online shops recently.
I’m curious since both you and my parent specially mentioned barley: what do you use it for? I can’t think of any common use for barley except brewing and I’ve never consciously seen it in a store (though I may have missed it since I have no use)
My grandmother used to put it in a soup with other vegetables and some meat. It really bulked out the meal and made you feel full, I always assumed it was an affordable way to feed a lot of people. More recently I've seen it appearing in salads.
I use it for the same meals you could use rice or pasta for it just has more "bite" than either one of those. When cooked in a vegetable broth it has a very pleasant flavour too.
Ok, thanks. That would be what’s called “graupen” in germany, rolled and polished grain. That’s fallen a bit out of favor, but I know it was once common.
That’s interesting. Do you have an idea if that’s really pure barley? A reason barley is not a grain commonly found in bread is that barley has no gluten (the glue protein that makes bread dough stick).
Where in the UK do you live? I bake my own bread and have around five different types of flour in the cupboard bought from regular supermarkets, and a few more from smaller speciality shops. There's loads of variety.
I don't eat meat so I can't comment on the butcher thing.
The thing is, I've lived here for 10 years and I haven't been able to find "an actual butcher" yet. Every single place that looks like an actual butcher shop ends up being just a meat store, where the meats are prepared and packaged elsewhere, and the people in the store just sell it. At best, they will have a large chunk of say pork loin, and they can cut a bit off for you.
It's not hard to find an actual butcher in London, but that may just be a metropolitan liberal elite bubble :p Agreed that the butchers in supermarkets, and even in many "butcher shops" are basically just cosplaying at butchery.
Very much this. Not in the UK (US here), but there's been a bit of a resurgence in butchery as a profession. So, this leaves me in the rather nice position of having not one but two 'real' (USDA inspected) butchers close by, but many butchers these days will also ship.
My subjective experience is the quality ranges from "noticeably better" to "OMFG how have I never had something this good before better" than the supermarket offering, though clearly at a higher price point.
I'm currently living in Switzerland and I was going to post something along these lines.
That being said, in the US there are also plenty of interesting grains/lentils/legumes available in stores thanks in part to inherited culinary traditions: cornmeal, corn masa, wild rice, couscous, black beans, pinto beans, various types of quinoa, various types of lentils, etc.
Spelt seems less common there but there isn't a tradition of cultivation of it so that makes sense. I do think the bean selection here in Switzerland is lower than I would prefer, but a few specialty stores mitigate that.
Is Germany truly considered to carry “Western culture” within the English-speaking world?
“Western culture” to me, when mentioned by the English-speaking world, has really just meant the shared ideals of the metropolitan parts of English-first first world countries (that’s a mouthful).
This would include major cities in countries like the UK, USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand but would also exclude their rural areas.
Not that I agree or disagree with it or that I’m trying to make a political statement - it’s just an observation I’ve found.
> Is Germany truly considered to carry “Western culture” within the English-speaking world?
apart from the political explanation there are also the philosophical roots of Greece as the birthplace of Western civilization. A country that builds on this can be part of the Western World. The books in this category give you a better picture of what belongs. Needless to say the English language or Anglo-Saxon culture is not a yardstick as to what belongs here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_Wor...
The terms Western, Eastern, and Third world stem from the Cold War. Western countries sided with USA and adopted capitalism, where Eastern countries sided with Russia and mostly adopted communism. The Third World countries didn't take a side.
I 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.
Colonisation and industrialization changed preferences: tea with sugar became trendy, and people ate white bread and butter with it, replacing more nutritious foods people before, like pease porridge (a legume stew).
And similarly, settlers who were living in placed like North America and Australia, with completely different growing conditions that what they were used to, ended up growing cash crops. But all they could buy with the money was flour and sugar and oil and other industrialized foods.
It's funny how counter this is to my own experience. I've never had a problem finding barley or buckwheat before, and even if the grocery stores don't carry it Bulk Barn is everywhere in Canada.
i'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).
The 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:
That 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.
I 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.
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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.
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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.
There 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.
Can 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?
For 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.
You'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.
Not OP but i think it's because grain farming is not really efficient overall without load of fertilizer (or burning forests), especially if you cna't use cover crops (if you can i think the storage capacity of grain make it a better product overall).
Grains 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.
Yes because we graze imported ruminants - I am suggesting we try and make our native animals a viable grazing option.
Kangaroo is very tasty and low in fat. Selective breeding like we have done with cattle and sheep could make them commercially viable rather than be seen as a pest.
But wouldn't that serious selective breeding coupled with some pressure to increase number of grazers per acre lead to the same damage as with cattle and sheep? Environmental damage is not about what eats up the grass but about scale and trying to extract as much profit as possible.
I'm no authority at all, but I suspect the hooves of cattle are much more destructive than kangaroo hind paws. I've seen rural land in a regional area revegetate after cows were removed and the changes were very noticeable. Often kangaroo tracks are less obvious and areas without new growth are the small areas they tend to lie down in habitually.
Yes the hooves of introduced ruminants are incredibly destructive to this sensitive lands. Kangaroos are much less damaging to the environment as they have soft feet.
It seems we have a lot of people commenting here who have no idea about the realities of modern agriculture.
Not productive now. Just like every other intensively farmed grain, you start with something that will actually grow, then modify genome until economically efficient. This seems like solid research, because finding crops with the genomes that allow them to grow in the outback is probably useful elsewhere.
And I fail to see how some hypothetical bulked up kangaroo farm is going to be any solution. 'Selective breeding' kangaroos can't change "there's not many calories out here, and not much water" into a nice juicy steak that western palates will make economical. See: Masai cattle breeds.
Well there never a guarantee of miracles. But wheat and barley didn't start out as marginal soil crops.
And kangaroos are adapted to low calorie food and low water now. If you bulked them out to be 'better', that is bigger, fatter, more tender, they would need more calories for fat and more water to support more mass. So, no, there is no "all we need to do...".
But when your attitude is 'these brown native people would never figure this out' perspective, it's easy to think in terms of "all we need to do...".
Actually wheat and barley did start out as marginal so it crops, but this is irrelevant to modern agriculture. The reason we can feed the almost 8 billion people on the planet is that we have selected for strains that respond to fertiliser and agrochemicals.
The selective breeding for improvement of kangaroos is not a binary choice - you can improve for multiple traits and balance for multiple requirements.
Where in the hell have I even hinted at “brown native people would never figure this out”? This is frankly very offensive.
If you RTFA you'll see that these grasses grow well on degraded land. Wheat, barley etc does not. We have a lot of degraded land.
If you read Pascoe's book, you'll see that one of the reasons the indigenous agriculture disappeared so quickly is that stock sought out the delicious native grasses and destroyed them. Delicious means market opportunity.
Yes but they are not productive. The yield of grain is not commercially viable. It is much better to use these lands for grazing stock - in an ideal world native stock.
I have my doubts as to the existence of indigenous agricultural - this doesn’t mean that aboriginal people didn’t do things that had some similarities to farming, just that they never stepped over the line and became farmers.
I think I get Daniel's point. I'm inclined to favour seeing that outback land turned over to something other than grazing, but what? It's remote, dry, broad, etc. Those grazing animals are essentially autonomous bots harvesting disparate clumps of feed - like a hay that bales itself (as meat).
Australian (and pretty much everyone else’s) grasslands are threatened and while mowing them isn’t idea, it’s a lot better than many of the alternative uses. Growing something that wants to grow versus some water intensive crop, or cattle is a straight win.
