On a gloomy day in Narrabri, Australia, Dianne Hall, a Ph.D. researcher on the University of Sydney Native Grains team, stopped at her house to pick up a bag of grains on her way to the lab. I sat in the backseat of her car, expecting a quick pit stop. Thirty minutes later, after singing “Happy Birthday” to Hall’s neighbor, helping her thread a needle, and stocking up on free lemons from a group of local children, we were on our way. Looking out the window at Narrabri’s expansive fields, I smiled about our anything-but-quick pit stop — one of many experiences that represents the core of the Native Grains team and their work, which relies on the town and its people just as much as the grains themselves.
More than one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity can be attributed to the way we produce, process, and package food, according to United Nations reports. Working to change this statistic, the University of Sydney Native Grains team believes the solution to modern food challenges lies in re-creating the native grain production system, which sustainably produced food for thousands of years in Australia.
During my time studying abroad at the University and conducting an academic research project surrounding climate change and Aboriginal land management, the Native Grains team took me under their wing, enthusiastically inviting me into their work and volunteering to guide me through the research process. This April, I traveled with the team to Narrabri, a country town located eight hours north of Sydney, to learn about their revitalization of native grains. What I found in Narrabri, however, constituted not just a renewal of an ancient food production system, but a strengthening of community after the devastating impacts of colonization and catastrophic forest fires.
In Australian First Nations cultures, "Country" holds many meanings. It’s a proper noun often spoken about in the same way a person is spoken about: it is land, energy, relationships, and knowledge at once, and First Nations people are intertwined with Country in a reciprocal relationship of mutual care and protection.
Narrabri is located on Gamilaroi Country, an Aboriginal nation which once relied on native grasses for grain production. Prior to the arrival of Europeans on Gamilaroi Country, native grasslands dominated much of the area. With colonization came the removal of native grasslands for the grazing of cows and sheep, changing the species mix of local crops while also raising new possibilities for sustainable growth using ancient practices in a modern context. Culturally, the lasting effects of colonization have fragmented Gamilaroi knowledge, language, and lore, posing challenges for community knowledge-sharing. Violence, government policies of segregation and assimilation, clearing of traditional land, and forced diets affected Aboriginal food knowledge, food systems, and populations.
A 2021 census found that around 16% of Narrabri’s population is Aboriginal, whereas only around 3% of Australia’s total population identifies as such. While the town’s Gamilaroi residents work in a variety of occupations, they also play a key role in the Native Grains team’s work in a variety of capacities. In addition to working with Black Duck Foods, an Aboriginal social enterprise, co-designing research projects with local communities, and receiving guidance from a council of Gamilaroi elders at monthly meetings, the team is intentional about employing Gamilaroi researchers, such as Dianne Hall and research assistant Hannah Binge, and ensuring the presence of Aboriginal and First Nations academics in and outside of the lab.
The Native Grains team operates out of the University’s Narrabri Campus, which comprises over 2,000 hectares of land, most of which is fertile and irrigable. Launched in 2020, the Native Grains project is currently led by Associate Professor Kim Bell-Anderson. On my trip to Narrbari, Bell-Anderson, Hall, and Binge were also joined by Matthew Pye, Ph.D., a botanist, Rebecca Cross, Ph.D., a human geographer, and Daisy Taylor, a natural sciences student, to collaborate on multiple ongoing interdisciplinary projects. “Cultural competence is everything. It’s why we’re here on Country doing this work,” said Pye in a conversation on the Narrabri campus, while the rest of the team gathered around him waiting to smell the eucalyptus leaf he was rubbing between his palms.
Through workshops, knowledge sharing days, and ongoing collaborative research projects, the Native Grains team is revitalizing native grains and lost knowledge by sharing sustainable harvest and production practices with local communities and University of Sydney students. Each time I visited downtown Narrabri to share a meal with the team, they recognized local colleagues and friends, always stopping to catch up, or “have a yarn,” showing just how important community engagement is to the team dynamic.
(Left) Pye, Hall, and Bell-Anderson prepare native grain pancakes for a group of students.
Within the team and community, native grains such as millet and arm grass are regarded for more than just their nutritional benefits. The driving force behind a mutually beneficial relationship between the team and the Gamilaroi residents of Narrabri, the grains represent the reconnection with ancient cultural practices in the wake of colonization, the preservation of First Nations knowledge, and the health and healing of Country, according to Bell-Anderson.
It's really about identifying sustainable practices and giving them back to the community - Kim Bell-Anderson, nutritional physiologist and member of the Native Grains team
With ongoing projects focused on best-practice farming, low-cost seed processing, gut health, and wild plant selection, the team’s excitement about creating a sustainable industry in which native grains can efficiently be harvested is palpable. In the lab, tradition and modernity are seamlessly blended in a constant exchange of knowledge between team members, community members, volunteers, and students.
(Left) Daisy Taylor pours grains into a processor.
While spending an afternoon with the team testing various methods for processing native seeds, I learned practices that have been utilized for centuries, such as winnowing, or cleaning, the seeds by dropping them into the wind to separate them from unwanted plant material, and simultaneously witnessed creative, new methods of seed processing like using a hair dryer to thresh the grains. Creativity and adaptability are a priority in the lab, ensuring that First Nations knowledge is incorporated with the use of modern tools, like the hair dryer, and newly purchased technology, like a seed-cleaning vacuum separator.
By the end of the day, I understood that each team member had their personal methodology down to a science. While Taylor worked indoors using a vacuum separator and thresher to clean the seeds, I preferred to work outdoors, using the more traditional method of blowing on the seeds to winnow them. As Hall demonstrated each method for us, she encouraged us to get creative with our methodologies. Wrapping up my time in the lab, I felt a deep sense of fulfillment in the work I had observed and participated in. Narrabri had transformed my understanding of the cultural, environmental, nutritional and economic potential of the native grain food system, and I left with a curiosity about what the system would look like in the future.
On the drive back to Sydney from Narrabri, Matthew Pye and Rebecca Cross sat in the front seat allowing me to quiz them about their interdisciplinary studies, the smells, tastes, and names of local plants and grains, and their years-long friendship. As we approached an area known as the Pilliga Forest, Pye recounted the tale of the Pilliga Princess, a hitchhiker killed by a truck whose ghost has been seen roaming the outskirts of the forest since, they made a detour to explore the Princess’ stomping grounds.
Entering the Pilliga brings an eerie awareness of the surrounding silence, partially influenced by countless tales of people going missing within its vast expanse but primarily due to the fresh destruction of forest fires that tore through the national park in 2023. Driving through the forest, I was enveloped by 121,000 hectares of burnt eucalyptus trees and cypress pines, a visual reminder of the devastation of climate change. As hopeful for a sustainable future as my time in the lab had left me, I felt completely devastated driving through the Pilliga, desperately searching for any sign of life or greenery.
Cutting the silence as he parked the car, Pye offered a piece of his botany knowledge: The Pilliga is full of post-fire epicormic re-sprouting, an adaptive trait of plants that allows them to regenerate after fires. As he spoke, I began to notice the greenery surrounding my feet. The ecosystem was healing itself, despite the damage brought upon it by humans. Venturing deeper into the forest and noticing the life surrounding us, we jokingly referred to it as a “fourth dimension,” a place with such a tangible magic that we didn’t quite know how to define it.
Like the fauna of the Pilliga, the native grain production system is being rebuilt in a way that won’t quite look the same as it once did, but will demonstrate its ability to withstand the test of time. In the Pilliga, in Narrabri, and throughout the Gamilaroi Country of Northern New South Wales, magic does exist, from the self-healing forest to the love shared by a team of people working to create a sustainable food system and, in turn, a healthy and healed Country.