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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

For the past three years author and farmer Bruce Pascoe has been trying to establish a sustainable practice on his land.

Informed by the Indigenous farming techniques he researched for his bestseller Dark Emu, he’s also trying to undo the damaging legacy inflicted through decades of post-colonial practices.

Today - Bruce Pascoe on the way to save Australia’s land, and economy.

Phone ringing

Bruce:

Bruce Pascoe speaking.

Ruby:

Hi Bruce Pascoe, it’s Ruby Jones.

Bruce:

How are you going Ruby?

Ruby:

I’m pretty good. How are you going?

Bruce:

Not too bad.

Ruby:

This phone line sounds quite good, I was curious to see how clear it would sound.

Bruce:

Yes I’ve got satellite here, can be tricky at times, but when it’s going well it’s pretty good.

Ruby:

Ok. Well lets roll with it then, Bruce, could you start by telling me about where you are, what you can see?

Bruce:

Well, we're on the Wollogorang River here. The farm is called Umbarra, which is black duck, the central totem of Yuin people. This is a system of Rivers Mandingo General Wollogorang, which flow into the Mallacoota lakes. It's an incredibly beautiful country. It would have broken your heart last night to look out over the rivers and feel the air like silk, it was just absolutely gorgeous country.

And has been damaged by farming. We're trying to farm in the same sensitive way that looks after soil and so that we can enjoy this country forever.

Ruby:

Hmm. Can you tell me a bit more about the farm, about what you actually do and and what it's like there?

Bruce:

Well, it was an old buggered up farm, it was the only farm I could afford. Just happens to be on the Warrego River and it's very good land. And we kicked off all the cattle so that we could rejuvenate the land. And so now we're growing Murnong, named after a podium, Vanilla, Lily, Bobo and Lily, several other kinds of tubers.

And we're also growing the grasses. So we were harvesting four or five different grasses here, which are grasses natural to the area. But we're helping them compete with introduced grasses and we're making progress with that. And so we're converting that grass harvesting to flour and baking bread with it.

So now we're trying to grow food, grow Aboriginal food, which doesn't need the applications of excess water for pesticides, weedicide, for instance, but we're trying to build up soil health as well. And show that farm economies can be improved by cutting down expenditure on chemicals.

So in doing that, we're working with the land and we're trying to recover the soil health here that was ruined by hard-hoofed cattle, but also applications of super phosphate, compaction by machinery. We're trying to be far more conscious of we’re we travel with our vehicles. We're now trying to recover the tilth of the soil. So that's softness as well as well its fertility.

We shouldn't be at war with the land. We need to work more cooperatively with the land. And we've been fortunate that we can do that. So we don't try and struggle with the land we try and go with the land.

So it's a long project. And, you know, we've only just begun, but we know what we're trying to do.

Ruby:

Mm. And so is the, is the bigger idea here to to show how this can be done, to show how farming can be sustainable in Australia by using these practices that work with the land and also undo some of the impact of European colonisation and those methods of farming?

Bruce:

Yeah, it's just an attempt to show another way. We can't switch over to this straight away because we still need to produce food for people. But there are many farmers, particularly on marginal land, who are adopting these ideas. And our aim here is to make sure that Aboriginal people are included so that we don't get told by a judge in the future that our culture has been washed away by the tide of history. That's been said to us before and was very damaging for the Yorta Yorta people, for instance, we don't want to ever be told that in a court of law again.

And so creating the farm in this way, employing Aboriginal people, using plants and using the old methods is our way of retaining our culture and retaining our rights to land.

Ruby:

Mm. And I wanted to ask you a bit more about the process involved in actually being able to get to this future that you're outlining. Do you think that our political system would allow for it or what kind of change do you see as necessary?

Bruce:

I think we need change and that, I think, will be driven by consumers, but also by farmers, because once farmers realise there's a demand for these products, some farmers will move towards the supply of those products. And at that point, the government's not even involved because people have made up their mind at the supermarket that they want this type of food. So the supermarkets will react and so will the farmer. They might react slowly, but they'll act and the government will fall in line.

I think there's a movement afoot in Australia and around the world for greater care of the land. I think the excesses of pastoralism and inappropriate farming have caught the attention of young people in particular, and people who want better food security and better treatment of the soil and the water resources. I'm encouraged by that enthusiasm to think that what is now a niche market for better food will become more general and the will of the people and their food tastes will cause change.

So now is the time for us to adjust the economic system we use, not eliminate it, and not become poverty stricken in the process, but to prosper into the future.

Because as a lot of agricultural philosophers around the world are saying, we are destroying our soil by our current methods. So it's only a small change to do things more sensitively for the earth. But because people need food, we can always supply that food and our economy will prosper. It won't look the same, but it will prosper.

Ruby:

We'll be back after this.

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Ruby:

Bruce, a few years ago - when you were researching materials that eventually formed your book Dark Emu - you started reading explorer journals, first hand accounts of life at colonisation. When you started reading those journals and accounts of Indigenous farming in - accounts that had largely been ignored by contemporary Australia, what was that like? How did it feel?

Bruce:

Well, on many occasions, I cried in frustration at destroying the structure, incredibly important information in journals that was denied me as a student but it was a shock. You know, to read about, you know, grasses as high as a horse’s saddle that people were converting into flour, chuba paddocks that stretched to the horizon, all of that stuff I didn't know.

And as an Australian, I would have loved to have known and as Australians, we should revel in this knowledge and try and replicate it. But when we replicate it, we must include Aboriginal people.

Ruby:

And your work - Dark Emu - is a best seller now. Why do you think it has had the success that it has?

Bruce:

And I think the country was on the way to a philosophical rebellion and we stood on the shoulders of people like Stan Grant, like Marcia Langton, like Charlie Perkins. We can only do what we do because of the work those people did. But now there's a real enthusiasm for change in the world and not just in Australia.

The idea of caring for the environment is relatively modern. And in the past, our religion's world religions were telling us that we had dominion over the earth and now we're reflecting on that and understanding that our dominion has actually caused destruction because we're not God and we don't understand the complexity. So it would be better for us if we were a bit more modest and looked after things a little bit better and trusted the Earth instead of trying to force the earth to do our will.

We've worked so hard in this country to turn it into England, and she doesn't want to do that. She is not England and we can't ask her to keep on growing potatoes with a drying climate. We can grow potatoes. They might be Aboriginal potatoes.

Ruby:

Mm and Bruce, along with the success of Dark Emu, there was also a backlash. Where do you think that that comes from?

Bruce:

Well, I'll tell you where it comes from. This backlash comes from ultra conservatives. I want things to remain exactly as they are who have deep faith in European religion, politics and economics and deep faith in industrial agriculture. And that's where the backlash began.

Ruby:

Right ok - and moving on from that - to the work that you’re doing on your farm -- has that come out of the research that led to Dark Emu - was this part of the same kind of journey that you’ve been on?

Bruce:

Yeah, it is. You know, it's obviously come out of research for Dark Emu. It's also come from mates, you know, who farm differently. You know, I've got a mate who lost everything in the fires 30, 40 years ago and started growing these grasses because that's all he could do. And he's made a living out of it. You know, that's an inspiration for us. You know, I've got some long haired hippy mates who, you know, gave them seed, started growing tubers. And they learnt a lot. And you know they're doing quite well with them now. So it's come out of what I did at Dark Emu and also down-to-earth farmers, down-to-earth growers and enthusiasm amongst young people for change.

Ruby:

Mhm. How are you feeling about where you're at and, and the future of your farm, given the journey that we've just been talking about and you know, and the things that you've weathered?

Bruce:

I feel exhausted. That's how I feel. I'm 73. It wasn't my ambition to be still driving tractors at this age. I love tractors. I've used them a lot in my life. But that's not what I want to do. I want a gentler, more reflective life, to tell you the truth, but I don't think I'm going to get it.

Because we need, we need this farm to work. We need to show Australia that it's possible to make a farm work and be kinder to the soil at the same time. We need to show Australians that growing food doesn't require endless amounts of water. We need to rebel against the manipulation of our water supply.

Eg, the Murray-Darling Basin, where cotton farmers have captured the water and denied it to towns and farms downstream. And we always act surprised that the fish die. There’s no surprise about it. We always blame drought. We blame our country for this happening. That river has been flowing for millions of years unimpeded until now. It's our fault. So we shouldn't act surprised. We should do something about it. That's what I'm trying to do.

I'm hoping that Aboriginal communities can benefit from it, and that young Aboriginal people can involve themselves in this and become the experts in it again, so that they train up as horticulturalists, they learn from the old people just as one of our people working here introduced us to a plant we didn't even know about the other day and showed us how we could eat it, that our young Aboriginal people can lead the way in this and make sure that our planet is protected.

We've only got one planet, Leon Musk or whatever his name is...

Ruby:

Elon.

Bruce:

Elon is it? Well, Elon can take his private spaceship to Mars or something like that with a lot of billionaires. Well, bye bye. See you later. I’m staying here.

Ruby:

Bruce, thank you so much for talking to me today.

Bruce:

No worries, catch you later.

Ruby:

This episode is based on a speech Bruce Pascoe has written for the Di Gribble Argument, presented by the Wheeler Centre. You can read a version of it in this week’s edition of The Saturday Paper.

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Ruby:

Also in the news today…

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds has announced she will remain on sick leave for another month, as calls for her resignation grow.

Reynolds took leave two weeks ago, citing a heart condition, after she was criticised over her handling of a rape allegation made by one of her former staffers.

And Health Minister Greg Hunt has said the federal government is on track to soon start delivering half a million Covid-19 vaccinations a week, but he did not specify a date.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See ya tomorrow.

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