Australia’s Agricultural Identity: An Aboriginal Yarn

Putting culture back in Agriculture.

A young, entrepreneurial Worimi man leaps into the discussion of agriculture on this land on which we live, its past, but more importantly, its future.

Yarning across history and into the future, Joshua Gilbert explores a new approach to Indigenous culture and farming, combining ancient knowledge and practices with new technology and insights.

Starting from his own Worimi country, where his family history is captured in the journals of the Australian Agricultural Company – among the earliest written records of agricultural practice on this continent – Josh listens to yarns about the farming that has always been and continues to take place on that country, which demonstrate that Indigenous culture is not static; it can account for and inform our approaches to land and climate even as they are changing.

As he contemplates these yarns and histories, Josh seeks to provide a new understanding that Australians, as a nation of farmers and land managers, need to develop our agricultural system into one where Indigenous and Western knowledges converge. One where we acknowledge the realities of Australia’s farming heritage, both positive and negative, and find ways to feed our population while caring for country and ensuring the livelihood of Australia’s farming towns.

He explores what it means to be an Aboriginal person today, what it means to be a farmer and even what it means to say you are Australian. Where these notions overlap, and how we might start to weave a common story that brings together all these ideas. So that we can create a truly Australian agricultural yarn – one that we all build together.

Review in The Age’s, Here are 10 new books to add to your reading pile:

The marriage of Joshua Gilbert’s convict forebear to a Worimi woman fused agriculture and culture, new and ancient ways, symbolising the aspirations of this forward-looking history-cum-memoir. From farming stock himself, Gilbert longs for the world to see that Indigenous people can thrive on the land, “selling cattle at top prices, and golden fleece to make thousand-dollar suits”. And to recognise that their relationship with Country can evolve with new enterprises. Gilbert is a gifted yarn-spinner whose life story spans the divide between Indigenous and settler histories; a traditional rural upbringing with deeper roots. When he was a boy, his family didn’t speak much of their Indigenous history. His adulthood has been a process of awakening to what it means to be an Indigenous person whose white ancestors worked for the Australian Agricultural Company that drove the Worimi people off their land. Through this personal lens, Gilbert offers a vision of what farming in Australia might become.