Gurandgi Munjie plans to harvest Original Australian crops

Currently, the Gurandgi Munjie Food Company is growing kangaroo grass, panicum decompositum – known as native millet – and yams or murnong on farms at Brogo, Cooma and Mallacoota.

Board member and award-winning author Bruce Pascoe said the plan was to harvest the seeds, turn them into flour and sell it to make into bread. 

Harvesting the seed crops will take place in January, with the aim of making some flour available by April. 

“There’s a huge learning curve, because no-one has turned these grasses into flour for a couple of hundred years,” Mr Pascoe said. 

As a result, a lot of research into growing the plants was “trial and error” as well as talking to elders and reading the accounts of the early colonists.  

Mr Pascoe, a Bunurong man from Mallacoota, said these plants are beneficial because they are carbon-friendly, as you do not plough the land to grow them so do not release much carbon or have to use tractors. 

According to his research, the land’s original inhabitants were experts in growing native crops. 

Mr Pascoe said the Original Australians were the first people in the world to make bread, evident by grinding stones found at Cuddie Springs in western NSW that were used to grind grain 30,000 years ago.

Also, there used to be multi-operational fields of domesticated murnong and kangaroo grass in Australia, before most were destroyed during European colonisation. 

When asked why such crops have not been utilised in mainstream modern Australia, Mr Pascoe said it was because historically society has not wanted to learn about how the Original Australians managed the land. 

“I don’t think Australia was interested in anything the Aboriginal people did in the past,” he said. 

“The harvesting, planting and irrigating of Aboriginal food talks about the possession of the land and Australians have been very nervous of addressing that.” 

Gurandgi Munjie has been running a fundraiser to collect enough donations to buy a seed harvester purpose-made to harvest native seeds. Extra funds will go towards paying for the milling bill. 

Donate before 10pm on Saturday by visiting www.pozible.com/project/grow-the-seeds-gurandgi-munjie.