Paul,

5 or 6 acres ? No. Maybe not even one acre, hand-watered, hand-dug, etc. Maybe not even a quarter of an acre. Peasant farmers around the world, using only their own labour, rarely ever are able to manage more than five acres, except of course, in some form of rotation. But barely five acres at any one time, more commonly - if we're talking about land which is intensively cultivated - two acres.

But most Aboriginal 'communities' have vastly more land than that and also access to tractors, rotary hoes, enough gear to plough up a hundred acres in a day, no trouble. Do many Aboriginal 'communities' have that sort of land area available ? Certainly. Do they have running water ? Usually. Would they have sufficient funds for starting up, for seed, piping, plumbing bits and pieces, shovels, forks, wheelbarrows, etc. ? A thousand dollars ? Of course they do.

But what else is it that is necessary ? Hmmm, let me think. A tradition of gardening, cultivation, would help. But perhaps what is essential is a willingness to put effort in, perhaps from early in the morning until late in the afternoon. That's how farmers do it the world over, including Maori paruaru or kaipamu.

Where you find those ingredients, Paul, you may be able to initiate a garden. Good luck.

Joe

Paul,

Sorry, I missed the horse bit :). Yes, with a horse, you could probably cultivate five to ten acres. The medieval definition of an acre was the area of land that a person could plough up with a bullock in one day.

But with vegetable gardens, as your lovely wife could tell you, there are the matters of watering and weeding etc. You can't get your horse to do those things. There's fencing, repairing, sharpening tools, etc. - a lot of jobs not specifically related to growing.

So 1-2 acres for one person on his or her own; and 4-5 acres with the aid of a horse or bullock.

The 'communities' where we lived down in southern SA totalled around forty thousand acres. They all had running water - in fact, usually an unlimited water licence, free water. Perhaps half of all that land would be suitable for cultivating now.

So that's around twenty thousand acres. Using horses or bullocks, that could mean thousands of people could be supported on the labour of the people cultivating that much, four or five acres each. Using a couple of rotary hoes, at, say, a hundred acres ploughed each day, they could plough up and cultivate the lot. Or of course, half of it - ten thousand acres - and spell the rest. That could effectively support one or two hundred families.

And any agribusiness adviser worth her salt would be advising 'communities' to diversify, to capture as much of the production and distribution process as possible. For example if the 'community' was to grow grapes and stone-fruit, it could dry much of it and package and distribute it as dried fruit.

I wonder if remote northern 'communities' have ever thought of growing dates ?

Joe

In the pacific islands a 10 acre plot, all tilled by hand using slash & burn techniques will support a village of a couple of hundred very easily.

A 40 acre plantation of coconuts will produce 30 ton a month of copra once mature. Palm oil is even more productive. Perhaps that is something for our north to consider.

But remember the New Guinea experience. A 30 ton a month plantation, bought back from it's Oz planter owner & given as a going concern to the local villagers, will very quickly drop to 3 ton a month or less.

The attitudes of some peoples are different to ours, due perhaps to their life experience. We are, peoples & individuals, a product of our history after all, who is to say one is better than any other.

Hi Joe,

The wife tells me the watering, mostly for seedlings, was not such a problem. The creek ran on 3 sides in a "Ü" shape, plus the very high rainfall, wouldn't go a week without some rain. Never seen the need for a pump from the creek, didn't have to walk to far. Weeding was a constant job with the hoe. Always had about 1/3 of the garden fallow, more in winter, less in summer. The main job for the horse was dragging the flat mesh to get the ground ready. Other job was gathering the cow pats, often planted things with a handful of cow dung. Her Dad did look after the tools, when needed.

The mirror does not lie (and lucky for him it
doesn't laugh).
Foxy,
It does give a distorted picture though, what you see as right is actually left !

"Closing The Gap" whether an agreement or a just a label will not resolve the problems many have because all it does is keep racists smiling...

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