We are a new yarn about a very old sto­ry.

Black Duck foods is an Aboriginal social enterprise that wants to influence the direction of Australian agriculture toward a more sustainable future, a more inclusive future for Aboriginal peoples and the introduction of our domesticated food products onto the market.

The old people harvested, propagated, nurtured, and processed a wide range of foods. We are working with the grains and tubers that held our soil together and promoted its fertility.

Australia’s post-colo­nial food sys­tem has seri­ous­ly degrad­ed the envi­ron­ment — a result of both the wil­ful and acci­den­tal neglect of the com­plex inter­con­nec­tions between food sys­tems and the wider ecosys­tem.

This has been com­pound­ed by the forced aban­don­ment of the Indige­nous Aus­tralian prac­tices of car­ing for Coun­try. As seen in Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agri­cul­ture or acci­dent?, tra­di­tion­al agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices worked in har­mo­ny with the land to pro­vide for peo­ple, while also main­tain­ing Coun­try.

The chal­lenge for Aus­tralia is to accept Aboriginal com­mu­ni­ties re-engag­ing and empow­er­ing them­selves with the util­i­ty of these pre-colo­nial food sys­tems and land stew­ard­ship prac­tices, and for us to sup­port other Aboriginal communities in lever­ag­ing their own tra­di­tion­al cul­ture and knowl­edge for eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit and environmental benefit.