Rediscovering wild food to diversify production across Australia's agricultural landscapes

Abstract

Conventional agriculture currently relies on the intensive and expansive growth of a small number of monocultures, this is both risky for food security and is causing substantial environmental degradation. Crops are typically grown far from their native origins, enduring climates, pests, and diseases that they have little evolutionary adaptation to. As a result, farming practices involve modifying the environment to suit the crop, often via practices including vegetation clearing, drainage, irrigation, tilling, and the application of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. One avenue for improvement, however, is the diversification of monoculture agricultural systems with traditional foods native to the area. Native foods benefit from evolutionary history, enabling adaptation to local environmental conditions, reducing the need for environmental modifications and external inputs. Traditional use of native foods in Australia has a rich history, yet the commercial production of native foods remains small compared with conventional crops, such as wheat, barley and sugarcane. Identifying what native crops can grow where would be a first step in scoping potential native food industries and supporting farmers seeking to diversify their cropping. In this study, I modeled the potentially suitable distributions of 177 native food and forage species across Australia, given their climate and soil preferences. The coastal areas of Queensland's wet tropics, south-east Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria were predicted to support the greatest diversity of native food and forage species (as high 80–120 species). These areas also correspond to the nation's most agriculturally intensive areas, including much of the Murray-Darling Basin, suggesting high potential for the diversification of existing intensive monocultures. Native crops with the most expansive potential distribution include Acacia trees, Maloga bean, bush plum, Emu apple, native millet, and bush tomatoes, with these crops largely being tolerant of vast areas of semi-arid conditions. In addition to greater food security, if diverse native cropping results in greater ecosystem service provisioning, through carbon storage, reduced water usage, reduced nutrient runoff, or greater habitat provision, then payment for ecosystem service schemes could also provide supplemental farm income.

Themeda Triandra as a Perennial Seed Crop in South-Eastern Australia: What Are the Agronomic Possibilities and Constraints, and Future Research Needs?

“…Desirable characteristics of perennial seed crops include their ability to mimic natural systems, to be drought tolerant, to maintain longevity under variable climatic conditions and the ability to restore and improve the productivity of degraded land (Cassman & Connor, 2022;Johnston et al, 1999;Mitchell et al, 2015;Sindel et al, 1993;Whalley & Jones, 1996). The use of perennial grasses as niche grain-producing crops in diversified monocultural agricultural systems is a possibility being explored in Australia (Canning, 2022;Newell et al, 2022; The University of Sydney, Institute of Agriculture, 2020), but these species have minimal potential to replace annual grain crops such as Triticum aestivum (wheat) as they fail to provide sufficient yields to satisfy global food demand (Cassman & Connor, 2022;Loomis, 2022).…”

“…Other than grain for human consumption, the key reason driving interest in the development of T. triandra is Aboriginal traditional owner groups (TOs) seeking to return culturally significant plants to the landscape for social, cultural and economic purposes (The University of Sydney, Institute of Agriculture, 2020). Developing agronomic knowledge on indigenous plants can help TOs in their pursuit for food sovereignty (Canning, 2022) and self-determination, of which Australia is committed to through adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN Declaration) (UN General Assembly, 2007). Djaara, the TO group representing the Dja Dja Wurrung people of central Victoria, recognises that T. triandra was historically distributed across their landscape and may have provided a source of food for their marti guli (ancestors).…”

“…More broadly, incorporation of native perennial grasses into modern-day cropping systems has the potential to be profitable due to comparative ease of management, low crop inputs and high market value for native grass seed. Other income sources include future government ecosystem service and carbon credit schemes, fodder for grazing during drought and restoration of degraded farmland (Canning, 2022;Farmers for Climate Action, 2021). This review aims to inform those who seek to grow T. triandra as a native perennial seed crop in south-eastern Australia by summarising the genetic, environmental and management factors that affect plant growth, development, and seed yield.…”