Dr Alana Gall
Prior to invasion, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (hereafter First Nations peoples) had an uninterrupted, deep, and interconnected relationship to their lands, waterways, and seas that ensured optimum health, and cultural, spiritual, social, and emotional wellbeing.
For thousands of years, advanced agriculture and aquacultural techniques supplied ample and dependable abundance of fresh and nutritious foods, with ‘caring for Country’ being the guiding principle behind sustainable harvesting and food procurement practices.
Traditional food and medicine practices have since been extensively impacted by European invasion and settlement. Displacement from traditional lands, forced reliance on poor quality ‘ration’ foods, limited financial independence, ongoing systematic racism, and climate change are key determinants of food insecurity and the poor health of First Nations peoples.
This year, myself and Dr Luke Williams, with the support of Jacob Birch, Caroline Deen, Assoc Prof Veronica Matthews, Dr Hamish MacDonald and Brett Rowling made a submission to the Australian Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs inquiry into economic self-determination and opportunities for First Nations Australians.
Our submission focused on the barriers that First Nations peoples face when attempting to utilise their traditional resources and associated Traditional Knowledge.
We welcome the publication of the Inquiry Report yesterday, which adopts several of our recommendations to support First Nations’ economic self-determination through a First Nations-led native foods industry.
First Nations-led native foods industry – an economic opportunity
Despite the ongoing impacts of colonisation, First Nations peoples continue to hold a spiritual connection with Country, including their traditional foods systems. However, access is often limited.
Our submission highlighted that communities in both urban and remote settings are calling for greater access to traditional foods and more control over their food systems as a solution to both food and economic security, and as part of their sovereign rights.
The native foods and medicines industry within Australia offers an opportunity for First Nations people to not only connect with their food systems, but also benefit economically from their commercialisation.
While the industry is heavily reliant on native foods and botanicals that have a long history of use within First Nations communities, a 2022 report stated that First Nations-owned and operated businesses were generating only 1% of the industry’s produce and dollar value.
Considering that most native foods and botanicals grow in rural and remote settings, a successful First Nations-led industry could create economic opportunities for those located in regional areas of Australia. It means staying on Country and maintaining their culture of caring for Country.
Building the economic and social infrastructure required to support long-term prosperity
First Nations entrepreneurs in the food and agribusiness sector face many hurdles to achieving economic independence.
These issues centre around a lack of information and education about how Australian food and medicine regulatory systems work, access to land, and access to the capital required to become operational.
The Inquiry Report has adopted our recommendation that the federal government establish and fund a peak body to strengthen the native foods and botanicals industry and ensure its continuity.
One example is the new Bushtukka and Botanicals Indigenous Enterprise Cooperative. This comprises First Nations primary producers and wild harvesters and has the potential to develop into a peak representative national body.
However, it needs funding to survive in this ever growing and competitive market, dominated by non-First Nations businesses and organisations.
We also recommended the establishment of regional bodies that represent a single Nation (clans, language groups, and Nations – which can include more than one clan/language group) or a collective of Nations. Regional authorities would allow for targeted and appropriate delivery and oversight of projects.
Once strong national and regional governance systems are in place, the next barrier is access to land. Whilst 57% of Australia’s landmass is under some form of First Nations tenure, most of that land cannot be used for economic outcomes and so cannot be leveraged to access capital.
This lack of autonomy has potentially devastating consequences for both health of Country and community economic wellbeing.
In situations where land is available and products are developed, a lack of supply and quality control oversight are major factors limiting scaling-up and ongoing investment into First Nations’ businesses.
These could be addressed by funding regional centres that provide the facilities needed to operate a food business successfully and safely, such as preparation and processing equipment.
Underlying this and preventing confidence in the industry from a First Nations perspective, is the fact that the current Australian legal system offers limited protection for traditional or cultural knowledge – including knowledge of traditional plants.
Under Australian law, entrepreneurs who utilise traditional knowledge in the creation of commercial products are often not required to enter into access and benefit-sharing agreements, nor are they required to pay regard to the interests of First Nations peoples.
This lack of protection and support deters First Nations entrepreneurs from developing products, for fear of being outcompeted.
Unlocking capital and leveraging intellectual property
Our knowledges of this country hold endless potential, especially our deep understanding of caring for Country, our food practices, and our medicinal knowledges.
The use of these knowledges requires free, prior and informed consent (as per the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) and fair and equitable benefit sharing with First Nations peoples (as per the Convention on Biological Diversity and its associated Nagoya Protocol).
For First Nations peoples to profit from their extensive knowledge of Country, food, and medicine, they first need adequate protection.
While Australia does have a patchwork of State- and Commonwealth-level biodiscovery and biodiversity laws, currently only Queensland and the Northern Territory have legislated protection for traditional knowledge.
The Inquiry Report recommends that the Australian Government ratify the Nagoya Protocol to protect First Nations knowledges and enable communities to leverage this knowledge.
The Inquiry Report also recommends the development of a centralised database that can host information about genetic resources, to increase protection of traditional knowledges, and strengthen knowledge sharing within Indigenous communities.
Facilitating First Nations leadership
A successful First Nations-led industry is going to need external help and investment.
While most researchers or investors who are interested in facilitating a First Nations-led industry have the right intentions, they often do not know who best to contact in a community to gain the appropriate cultural authority. Nor are they always aware of the cultural sensitivities that can be attached to many traditionally used plants.
To facilitate First Nations leadership, individual language groups/clans or cooperatives need to develop their own research protocols, as the Kimberly land council, Mithaka Aboriginal corporation, and Victorian Traditional Owners corporation have done.
This would help ensure that individual communities maintain their right to self-determination and are positioned to direct research or investment strategies that concern their genetic resources and associated culture.
We congratulate the Committee on adopting recommendations that support the realisation of First Nations economic security, including the establishment of sovereign, independent, and representative governing bodies that seek to drive outcomes for their respective nations in the food and botanicals sector.
We welcome their recommendations to support the stand-alone legislation to protect First Nations traditional knowledge and cultural expressions, and the development of food and medicine regulatory frameworks that consider Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property.
We also commend the Committee’s intention to nationally ratify the Treaty signed in Geneva at the WIPO Diplomatic Conference in May 2024 (of which I was in attendance), that introduced a new ‘disclosure of origin’ requirement in patent application.
These are important first steps in supporting First Nations Australians to utilise their traditional knowledge and attain economic security.
This article is adapted from the submission to the Inquiry into economic self-determination and opportunities for First Nations Australians (see submission 13 at this link), authored by Dr Alana Gall and Dr Luke Williams, with the support of Jacob Birch, Caroline Deen, Assoc Prof Veronica Matthews, Dr Hamish MacDonald and Brett Rowling.
Dr Alana Gall is a proud Truwulway woman, a Pakana (Tasmanian Aboriginal) from the north-east coast of Lutruwita (Tasmania, Australia), a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Southern Cross University, and PHAA Vice President (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander).
Dr Luke Williams is a Gumbaynggirr man and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland in the Centre for Nutrition and Food Science.
Jacob Birch is a Gamilaraay man working across academia (as a PhD candidate at UQ), social enterprise (as founder and managing director of Yaamarra & Yarral), and governance (as co-founder of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance’s First Nations Sub-Committee and the Gamilaraay Peoples Food Sovereignty Working Group).
Caroline Deen is a Kamilaroi woman, Accredited Practicing Dietitian and research fellow at the University of Sydney.
Associate Professor Veronica Matthews is a Quandamooka woman and co-lead of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Knowledges theme of the Healthy Environments and Lives (HEAL) Network, and the Centre for Research Excellence in Strengthening systems for InDigenous healthcare Equity (CRE-STRIDE).
Dr Hamish MacDonald is a non-First Nations researcher, whose research analyses the ways that intellectual property laws and agricultural regulation structure food systems.
Brett Rowling is a direct descendent of national figures of Bungoree and Matora from the GuriNgai Awabakal peoples, on the central coast of NSW, and is an Environmental Research Chemist from Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).
Image: Tourism Australia / Flickr
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