[Introduction Music 0:00:08.4]
Amanda:
Welcome everyone to number six now in our Farming Together webinar series, learning together, collaborative business structures and models. My name’s Amanda, I’m the Program Manager of Farming Together. Tonight really looking forward to hearing from Alan Beattie and Madeline Anderson, who are sharing their stories from the Noongar Land Enterprise Group, as we hear about stories from Country Indigenous collaborative farming. So without further ado let me introduce our two fantastic guests tonight, we have Alan Beattie, who is the CEO of the Noongar Land Enterprise Group, and we’ve got Madeline Anderson who is a Board Member of the Noongar Land Enterprise Group, but is also the Chairperson of the Beemurra Aboriginal Corporation. So welcome to you both, I’m not sure who’s going first, but Alan I think it might be you so we’ll hand over to you.
Alan:
Okay thank you, and thanks very much for the invitation. And good evening to all, well good afternoon to those people here in WA, it’s still sort of late afternoon, but I’ll share my screen and then we’ll go from there. Okay can you see that? Yep all good, okay. So first of all I’d like to thank Madeline for being on here today, it’s been a bit last minute for getting Madeline on board. Oral McGuire our Chairperson was going to be presenting with me, but he’s unavailable due to other commitments, and so I approached Madeline this morning and she’s jumped on board, so thank you Madeline, much appreciated. Okay what I’ll do is I’ll just talk through a little bit about what the NLE is, who it is, some of the activities we’re doing and our business model.
And Madeline will go over who Beemurra Aboriginal Corporation is, the work that they’re doing, and how they’re working collaboratively with the other organisations as a part of the NLE membership, in broad terms that’s what we’ll cover off on. So as I mentioned Oral McGuire who’s a Balladong man from Beverley is the Chairperson of NLE, Bruce Loo is from the Banjelungup people down near Bremer Bay, and our other Board Member is Reece Bomshaw who’s from Cranbrook, and Madeline who’s from [0:02:59.5] Country in Beemurra. I commenced as CEO of Noongar Land Enterprise Group in April this year, which was an interesting time to start, smack in the middle of covid.
So for the first two months instead of going out and meeting everyone face-to-face, it was two months sitting at home doing Zoom meetings like we’re doing now and getting to know people. So by the time we actually got around to having our first face-to-face board meeting seven months later, it was pretty much like I knew everyone. But it was certainly an interesting time to start, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the role to date, and we’re starting to kick a few goals which we’ll talk about. So the Noongar Land Enterprise Group, although only formally incorporated in 2017, it was being talked about by a number of people, including Bruce and Oral and another gentleman Kelly Flugge back as early as 2012.
And they were talking about how there was a growing number of Aboriginal corporations that were acquiring land, either through Native Title or through the Indigenous Land & Sea Corporation or other ways. And how could they work better together to be able to be more effective in what they were doing, and also to get some buying power and those sorts of things. So from there they undertook some strategic planning between 2014 and 2017 and in 2017 the Noongar Land Enterprise Group was formally incorporated through the Associations Act which is a WA piece of legislation. And then there was a formal launch of the group in 2018, and then through funding primarily through the Commonwealth and a small amount of funding through the WA Government, they were able to advertise and get a CEO on board, and as I said I commenced mid this year.
So it’s been a relatively long journey but also a short journey from an NLE perspective. But it was Australia’s first Aboriginal grower group, and we’re working now in partnership with the East West Alliance, which is a formation of various Aboriginal groups that are developing similar sorts of co-operative business structures now across Australia, so certainly NLE’s paving the way for this type of model for Aboriginal farming communities to work together. Currently NLE has eight member organisations and totalling around about 20,000 hectares. It’s very much about working in partnership, but at the same time as working in partnership is allowing for diversity, particularly at the organisation level.
So NLE is not the parent body of these organisations, each of the organisations is independent and runs their own affairs. What we do as NLE is try and work in partnership to build co-operative businesses, but also where we can support those individual organisations to develop their own businesses, then we do that to the best extent of our limited resources as well. This gives you an idea in regard to where the various properties are, but also the size of the area we’re talking about. So we’re talking about Noongar Country in the southern third of Western Australia, with Beemurra at the top left hand corner there up near Dandaragan, the Daniel’s property which is near Toodyay, Yaraguia Enterprises which is near Beverly, Roelands which is near Bunbury, Dowrene Farm down near Cranbrook, and Banjelungup down near Bremer Bay.
And then over at Esperance there are two organisations over there, Wongutha CAPS and the Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation. So it’s certainly spread almost to the length and breadth of Noongar Country, there’s not much area that we don’t have property in at the moment. With our membership of eight we anticipate that the number of members will grow as we can better demonstrate the benefits of being an NLE member. So certainly there’s an open invitation there for other Aboriginal corporations that own land in the south west of Western Australia to become NLE members. I won’t read through all of the vision, mission, values etcetera, people can have a read of that on the screen themselves, I think the key thing for mine out of that is the next slide which I will talk a little bit more about.
But also there’s a lot of thinking going on behind the establishment of NLE, and there’s a lot of smart people involved in NLE, that have led to well before I came on board, that have developed the organisation to the point it’s at now, and it’s a very well managed and run organisation at a Board governance level. This picture here is a graphic demonstration of our business model, the key thing I’ll highlight as a part of this is the centre bit there, where it has got NLE in the middle, and in there if you can read it, it has commercially focused culturally appropriate. And that’s very much the mantra of NLE as an organisation, is we are looking to develop commercially sustainable commercially focused enterprises that do turn a profit, but at the same time none of those will be developed where there’s a consideration that it’s not culturally appropriate.
And so we’ll talk about some of those activities and initiatives we’re working through shortly. But certainly that’s the key driver of NLE is the commercial focused culturally appropriate. So looking at this business model from the left hand side, we have on the far left the eight aboriginal corporations that are members of NLE at the moment. The next circle there is titled information and planning, and it’s really about a lot of those sorts of things that need to go into organising or running a corporation, but also running activities and enterprises as a part of that whole thing. So the things like financial planning tools, equipment, training infrastructure needs all of those various sorts of things.
Moving across to the middle which I’ve sort of spoken about to some degree, the culturally focused and commercially appropriate, but aligned with that is very very strong ethics and governance, and there’s also what are those deliverables going to be, what assets do we need and infrastructure associated with it. The next, moving across to the right is some of the activities or the activities that we’re currently developing such as the honey, bushfoods, and a range of other activities, Agri-tourism etcetera, and that list will grow as we develop the various business initiatives that we are developing. And on the right hand side we have profitable NLE landholders, so very much we’re not just focused on NLE as an organisation being a profitable organisation, but we want all of our landholders to be profitable and gaining commercial return as a part of them being an NLE member as well.
And finally down the bottom, there’s certainly recognition by all the NLE members and NLE as an organisation, that like most of us in life we can’t do everything alone, and that we do need staff and we do need supporters and collaborative partners. And so there’s a range of those partners, a range of organisations from government to all levels, State, Commonwealth and local, through to other private sector organisations, other grower groups that we are now working with, the private sector, the philanthropic sector, a whole range of people as part of that process in developing those partnerships. But I think key to that is very specific that the boomerang there is at the bottom of the diagram rather than at the top.
So it’s very much saying that there’s a full recognition that yes we need those partners and we need to be working with them, but there’s a very strong message in that model that the people driving this are the Noongar people themselves, not the partners and not Government, etcetera, not anyone else. It’s the individual corporations and Noongar people themselves that are driving where they’re heading with their various properties and driving NLE as an organisation. You’re probably sick of my voice by now, so it’s time to hand over to Madeline, and Madeline can tell us a little bit about Beemurra.
Madeline:
No worries. Thanks Alan, and thank you very much for the invitation. I had to shuffle a few things around there with the kids being home from school now, so I had to give them the instruction before the meeting started, and they seem to be quiet [Chuckles] so hopefully I’ll have no interruptions. So I’ll introduce myself, I’m a [0:13:35.3] from Dandaragan, I have strong connections to both the Moora community, Dandaragan community, as well as the Country itself. My ancestors are from this area, and they’ve travelled and lived in Dandaragan more in the north right out to the coast as far as Jurien, and travelled according to the six seasons. They’re quite well established here in Dandaragan, my family being my grandmother and her sister, applied for the land package back in the early 1990s, and were offered the opportunity to access a piece of land in Dandaragan.
So that conversation started between my grandmother and her sister and her sister’s husband around what can they do on the place, and Pop Kevin who you see in the photo there, he’s been here from the beginning, I refer to him as my grandfather, so I’ve got many grandfathers and he’s one of the most important grandfathers in my life. He comes from a very big family with connections from as far as Cue and right across to Lake Grace. And I’ve known Pop Kevin since I was born, I was raised by my grandparents, I can’t tell lies and Pop Kevin knows everything about what I’ve done and where I’ve been [Chuckles]. So our relationship is very important in terms of how we foresee the operations of Beermurra and the relationships with the community.
So to give you some background, in the first 10 years Pop Kevin, his wife and their children had been operating a goat farm here, and had trial and error on what they need to prioritise, and there was a lot of work put into infrastructure and setting up governance, so there were a lot of learnings. And the Board at that time was made up of all of the elders in our family, so you can imagine there were a lot of gaps in learning and understanding on how to operate a business itself. So moving 15 years forward, Beermurra had a conversation with Mark from [0:16:23.8] just to have a yarn about what else can we do here and what support have we got that’s available to us.
So at that time a lot of us, the second generation from Pop Kevin were just coming out of finishing school, or had finished their Diploma or some form of qualification. So the elders engaged with us, with our generation, and started to have the conversation about what are the next steps, what else can we do. So this is where in 2015 Beermurra decided to take that leap of faith I suppose, I mean Pop Kevin his background as a stockman and working out on the station, so a lot of us relied on Pop Kevin’s knowledge, and I suppose he would rely on us and the skills and knowledge we have, especially around bookkeeping. So there was a lot of work put in to this new operation which is a backgrounding operation that we have here, so backgrounding cattle.
We’ve got a small operation here, our property is around 1,200 hectares, and we have established just a little over 500 hectares of [0:18:03.3], so the backgrounding operation is basically set up around a rotational grazing system. Five years prior to the backgrounding we had cattle on the property on agistment, so there was no control on how we managed the land and how we took care of it. So with the support of [0:1832.8] we’ve accessed a number of training around animal husbandry, the backgrounding model itself, and the members that were living on the property were able to engage in conversations not only with our clients, but also with the wider community, and it was always a short conversation.
So our operation we’re five years in and doing really well, and I’ve been able to manage that within our capacity and our control, and how we want to talk about our operation, and how we want to engage with community, and how we’re going to take care of the land itself whilst we’re managing the cattle resources. So with the new generation coming back home, one of them being myself and Pop Kevin’s other two grandchildren, and also our cattle manager which is Lexine Mourambine, we are keen and we’re ready to get out into the community and to start talking about who we are and what we do. It has been really tough in the past two years trying to do that, not really having so much connections to other farmers or being able to access other grower groups, and the conversation with [0:20:13.6] was a turning point for us which was last year, it was mid last year.
And he was talking about NLE and what they do, so we jumped on board fairly quickly on the ground, we became members in October last year. And the opportunity for us was to one increase networks within the Noongar Boodjar, and to be supported by other Noongar business enterprises. Because we had tried numerous times trying to work with our local community, and it is changing, it’s changing, we’ve been in articles now so they won’t be able to get away from us, and that again is from the support from NLE in assisting us in our marketing strategies. We’ve also been able to develop the confidence in accessing or participating in other– they’re kind of set up like grower groups but they’re just much smaller around rotational grazing and land care management.
So NLE has been a great opportunity, it’s given us that opportunity to be able to network in a way where we can have the same conversation without feeling like we’re excluded. And this is acknowledging Noongar Country and acknowledging our resources and connecting that back to who we are, and how we are trying to not only repair the land, but also help look after our people and opportunities around employment and really caring for Country. So I’ve probably jammed it all into one little conversation there, but that’s pretty much it all in a nutshell. If you’ve got any questions I’d be happy to answer.
Alan:
Thanks Madeline. I’ll just go through a few other slides, we’ve got about five minutes left and talk a little bit about some of the NLE activities, and then I think we’re moving on to question and answer, is that the way that it’s happening Simone?
Simone:
Yeah that’d be great.
Alan:
Okay.
Simone:
Thanks Madeline that was great, and no doubt they’ll be lots of questions coming too.
Alan:
Great.
Simone:
Thanks Alan.
Alan:
Okay. So what NLE saw as a group coming together, as a grower group coming together was a range of things, and these are only just touching on some of them. But one it was a single point for stakeholders to be able to come to, so if there’s people that are wanting to engage, whether it’s government or non-government organisations, then it makes it easier for them to engage with NLE, and then NLE can get engaged with its members. One of the key things is scalability, so if we’re all producing one good–or a number of people are producing one sort of good that’s of a relatively small scale or small quantity, then we’re able to build that together and get that scalability.
And it then becomes more marketable which then leads onto the whole marketing side of things. One of the key things that NLE is trying to be able to do is allow the grower group or allow the individual landowners to do what they’re good at, and that’s growing the goods and producing the produce etcetera. And then we undertake the marketing and develop the markets for people etcetera in relation to that, so that they can focus in on actually doing the business and growing the produce. And one of the key things out of this as well as Madeline said, is giving people a voice, and that’s in a whole range of ways. One is coming together at our NLE members meetings, so that people can share stories and that sort of thing between themselves, but it’s also giving them a broader voice within the farming community and within a whole range of various communities that we all participate in.
But by having that collective voice we have a much stronger voice, and a voice that is hopefully starting to be listened to. Some of the other parts–so this one’s more looking at from a cultural perspective in relation to what are the benefits from the NLE members being a part of NLE from a cultural perspective. And very much it’s around that, I mean caring for Country and connection to the Country and mother earth is fundamental to Aboriginal culture full stop and the Noongar people particularly. And so a key element of accessing and gaining the land and caring for Country, is around that whole culture of rejuvenation, and very much there’s that connection between the mind and the body and the land from an Aboriginal perspective.
And so not only are we healing Country in these various properties, but through the healing of Country we’re healing the individuals that are associated with it. And at the same time where people wish to participate, the broader community is providing an opportunity for the broader community both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal to benefit from that spiritual connection to the land and the healing that that can bring. And then associated with that there’s the storytelling and a whole range of other sorts of things from that cultural expression point of view, and we recognise that we’re all living in the 21st century, and so things like employment and job opportunities and those sorts of things is critical to everyone, including the Noongar community.
From a partner’s point of view, as I’ve said we recognise that there’s a need for us to partner with a whole range of people and for a whole range of reasons, which I won’t go into detail on because I want to move on to some of the activities. So one of the activities we’re developing is a honey project, so a beekeeping honey project, we’ve branded that honey; it’s called Ngooka which is the Balladong word for honey. And we did a small non-commercial pour towards the end of last year and have done another one just recently. And we’re anticipating and hoping that we’ll get to the point where we’ll actually have it commercially available in some way shape or form, whether it’s as a raw honey or in some other form of product associated with that by round about mid next year, mid 2021.
It’s one of those things that certainly being a beekeeper or an apiarist isn’t for everyone, but a part of NLE’s role in this has been to provide the opportunity for all eight NLE members to participate in the training and have hives and those sorts of things. And really it’s then up to the individual corporations to the extent they wish to or do not wish to get involved, and that will then determine the amount of honey we produce and where we go to with this business initiative. One of the others that–there’s a couple of photos there of the beekeeper training which is being undertaken by Mal Clifford who’s an Aboriginal apiarist, who has been an apiarist for the last 30 to 40 years, so Mal’s been doing a great job there.
One of the other things we’re developing is a range of bushfood initiatives, but the primary one to start with is wattle seed produced by the acacia species. There was a small harvest done last year on some of the properties, and this year over the last few days, the last week we’ve been doing quite a major wattle seed harvest at two properties, one up near Madeline’s Country, and another one near Beverly that’s currently being undertaken. And so this is certainly something that we see as a major business initiative, both the wattle seed as a single element itself, but also the development of a greater participation in the bushfoods industry. Unfortunately out of the roughly 25 million commercial value of bushfoods annually within Australia, the estimate is that approximately 1% of that is currently produced by Aboriginal people.
And so we’re certainly determined to change that at a WA level and become a major player in the provision of bushfoods, particularly the food industry, but also into your shops that you locally go to and those sorts of things where there’s bushfoods available. We hope to within a very short period of time have a large proportion of that badged with NLE as a part of it, so that there’s certainly a strong market potential there. And this is the last one, and I’d say the most exciting one that we’ve certainly been working on for the last six months or probably has occurred in the last three months, is as of officially today we become the owners of a tree nursery out near Northam, that settled today.
We actually acquired it through a licence arrangement around about a month ago so that we could actually start planting, and so that’s a major step forward for NLE from a number of reasons. One it’ll provide NLE with a profitable business that can contribute back to the operations of NLE itself, but also it provides NLE as an organisation with a landholding, not huge, but a landholding that then we can utilise for access to equity and those sorts of things moving forward. And more importantly I think than either of those two is the employment that we can provide local people. We’ve had 10 to 15 people engaged from day one, local Aboriginal people engaged from day one since we acquired the property.
Quite amazingly we’ve been able to in the space of a few weeks gain orders of approximately 1.5 million seedlings to be planted, so we’re furiously trying to get that done, we’re up to around about 400,000 seedlings planted over the last three weeks. And I think broader than that, again it very much fits into NLE’s business model of commercially sustainable culturally appropriate. In that the seedlings that come out will not only be utilised by our own NLE members to rejuvenate their own properties, but the vast majority of it will be actually used by the broader community, whether that’s government or non-government organisations, farmers etcetera, to be able to care for Country and rejuvenate the land, which very much fits in with our whole philosophy.
So I think the acquisition of the tree nursey is a perfect fit for our business model and is a key step in our lead moving forward as an organisation into the future. So I’ll finish on that one, and any questions? I’ll move out of this slide deck.
Simone:
[Claps] thank you very much. Very wonderful to hear your story in so much more detail than I was aware of previously, and as well Madeline to hear about your experience as being part of the co-operative as well. If anyone does have any questions please feel free to pop them in the chat, and we can invite you to turn on your mic as well.
Amanda:
I’ve got a question for Madeline, and forgive me not knowing what this is and possibly I should, but backgrounding you called it I think?
Madeline:
Yeah, sorry I probably should’ve explained that. But backgrounding is basically we don’t own the cattle, the cattle come down from pastoral stations or even cattle in the wheat belt. So they come to our property, it’s all on a weight gain model, so it’s basically a profit sharing business where they come onto our property, we in a nutshell fatten them up and then we send them off either to the abattoir or to the live markets, it depends on what the client specifications are.
Amanda:
Fantastic. So as you were saying before unlike agisting doing it this way you actually have a lot more control and decision making about how you manage your land, and I guess you get to share in the good work that both partners do in bringing the cattle and fattening them up.
Madeline:
Absolutely. So using the rotational grazing system has been a huge advantage in how we manage our pastures here, and we have a higher number of cattle coming through the property. And we’ve seen a huge increase in our profits over the past three years, and that’s the greatest thing we’ve achieved in the life of Beermurra, so it’s really good to see.
Amanda:
And it sounds like you’ve just had such a radical learning opportunity along the way in the time that you’d been involved. I’ve really enjoyed listening to the stories about the things that you’d learnt along the way, it sounds like you’ve had some rapid learning opportunities and experiences.
Madeline:
Absolutely. So Pop Kevin’s still living on the property, myself and my family, and our cattle manager Lexine Mourambine who’s also brought an array of skills and knowledge to the corporation as well, so we’re really happy with how we’re progressing. And we’re actually looking at a new enterprise and that’s around Aboriginal astronomy, so we’re looking at engaging with young people from the communities and finding more creative ways to get young fellas out on Country.
Amanda:
How brilliant.
Simone:
That’s fantastic. We’ve got a question from Dana Kelly in the chat there, you mentioned backgrounding, wattle seed and a tree nursery, what other agricultural enterprises are there in NLE? That might be one for you Alan.
Alan:
Yeah. So if you look through the various properties we have some of them are more engaged in traditional, well western farming style enterprises than others. Madeline as I mentioned is doing cattle backgrounding, one of the other properties Dowrene Farm down at Cranbrook they’re doing prime lamb production, the Beermurra Aboriginal Corporation over at Bremer Bay all going well are going to be starting prime lamb production in the next 12 months. Other properties such as the property near Beverly, Oral there is focused very much on trying to rejuvenate the land, rather than focusing on a more western style agricultural business or operation.
So they’ve planted half a million native species onto their property over the last ten years, and their goal is to plant another half a million over the next five years, but that in itself is a form of income generation off the land. And as it’s the last lot yesterday, today and tomorrow, where we’re doing the wattle seed collection at that particular property. So although it’s not necessarily seen as probably one of those traditional western style land based commercial activities, we’re very much as well looking at those from an NLE perspective, looking at how we can actually utilise the land in a way that generates an income but is probably a little bit more gentler on the earth as well.
Simone:
Amazing. Dana was also keen to know how many cattle enterprises there are amongst the properties?
Alan:
The only one at the moment is Beermurra. Now we’re on Noongar Country which obviously not where your station country is and those sorts of things. Now there’s a whole range of Aboriginal owned stations in the Pilgrim’s at Kimberley, but they’re not a part of the NLE network as they’re not on Noongar Country.
Simone:
Douglas said that NLE sounds amazing, has there been any look or interest in platform co-operatives or multisided marketplaces etcetera?
Alan:
I think one of the things as I said we’ve got an association going with the Outback Academy which is based in New South Wales, and we’re developing this East West Alliance, which is then working through with a range of Aboriginal corporations that are looking to form similar co-operatives in South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, and now generating some interest in Queensland. So I think there’s opportunity, and part of those discussions with the East West Alliance is how do those co-operatives work together individually, but also then how do we work together as an overall co-operative right across Australia from that point of view in relation to looking at again scalability, marketing and those sorts of things. So I’m not quite sure whether that’s what Douglas was getting at, but certainly I think there’s a range of opportunities there. But it’s early days and I mean NLE’s been going three years, I’m their first full time employee in the last six months, so it’s a work in progress that’s for sure.
Simone:
Douglas added yes it is, and he also asked if you’re familiar with–it’s an acronym I’m assuming, NAAKPA, and if so can you speak to any similarities or differences?
Alan:
Can’t say I’m aware of that one.
Simone:
Did you want to get on the mic Douglas?
Douglas:
Yes, can you hear me?
Simone:
Yeah we can.
Douglas:
Yes. Thank you, sorry I was just throwing random acronyms out there. But NAAKPA stands for Northern Australia Aboriginal Kakadu Plum Alliance. And they’re basically a collective of wild harvesters at the top end, who basically aggregate the harvest which is being done by women’s work and bringing that harvest to market domestically and internationally. And they have some support from ILSC, and so I was just curious whether or not ILSC is being supportive of this initiative in the same or similar context?
Alan:
Yeah certainly I mean various corporations work individually with the ILSC, but the ILSC also have been a supporter of NLE in various ways shapes and forms. We’re currently in discussions with them about getting some upgraded equipment and those sorts of things for the tree nursery, so there’s a range of support there. I think from our perspective the two key support organisations to date from an NLE perspective, from a government side of things, have been ILSC at the Commonwealth level, and then through the Department of Planning, Industry & Resource Development at a WA level, have been very strong supporters of NLE as well.
Douglas:
Great, thank you.
Simone:
Thanks Douglas. I’ve got a question from Michelle; it’s a great model for sharing skills, resources, value adding, marketing etcetera. Is there any sharing of land and water?
Alan:
I’m not quite sure what’s meant by the sharing of land and water. I mean we’re primarily focused on land based enterprises from the point of view of that’s where the majority of the properties are, but some of the properties are also adjoining the ocean, particularly down at Bremer Bay and Esperance. And so that maybe well something that we look at developing business initiatives in those areas as time moves on, but at the moment we’ve got plenty of land based activities keeping us well and truly busy at this particular point. That’s probably the best answer I can give to that one.
Simone:
Yep. Did you want to elaborate at all Michelle?
Michelle:
No that’s fine. I guess in Indigenous societies property ownership was a completely different paradigm, so I’m just wondering how modern collaborative farming marries to traditional approach to sharing land.
Alan:
Yeah and I think that is certainly key to the NLE model, and is that whole notion of the collective approach in relation to it. So it’s sharing the benefits of the land across the various people etcetera and bringing that under one umbrella, so we can get from both the sharing perspective but also from a commercially sustainable perspective. And I think in a WA south west Noongar perspective as well it’s going to change over the next few years, with the High Court making its Native Title decision in the last week or so, around the finalisation of the settlement between the WA Government and the Noongar people in relation to their land claim etcetera. That that’s going to have a range of impacts potentially on NLE and how it operates and what it does etcetera moving forward. But that will come out over time, and certainly I think a large part of that is about as you said the sharing of the land and where it is, if water’s involved then similar arrangement.
Michelle:
Thanks for your thoughts Alan.
Simone:
Thanks Michelle. We’ve got Alexander; he’s got a good question, why did you choose a co-operative structure rather than another legal structure?
Alan:
I think the co-operative model seemed to fit with what people were trying to achieve from the point of view of the information sharing and a whole range of other sorts of things. One of the things that we are discussing as a collective as NLE members and particularly at the Board level, is that the co-operative model as a not-for-profit organisation may not be appropriate for everything we do. So it may well be that we end up with a range of structures and a range of business models that suit the needs of whatever that particular business initiative is. And so I don’t necessarily see that and the Board doesn’t necessarily see that that will be the only structure, but it seems to be an effective structure with the purpose of bringing in NLE, the formation of NLE, and bringing the NLE organisations together to begin with.
Simone:
Great, thanks Alan. Anne Jennings has just put a note in there that NAAPKA is what Pat Torres is involved in in Broome. And Paul’s got a question, are you able to talk about whether NLE supports young people with apprenticeships, traineeships and further education?
Alan:
It’s certainly something that we want to do. At this point we haven’t been able to directly do that from the point of view of it is early days as an organisation, but certainly that’s I think at both the individual corporation level and at the broader NLE level, there’s a desire to do so. Some of the NLE member organisations such as the Tjaltjraak organisation down at Esperance, they’ve got an Aboriginal ranger program, and some of those people are certainly going through traineeships and those sorts of things as a part of that ranger program. One of the things we would like to do as a part of the nursery and associated with that, the bushfood side of things we’re looking to develop is to be able to provide opportunities whether they be apprenticeships or traineeships as a part of that process as well. So it’s certainly a strong desire we have as an organisation, but it’s something that we just haven’t had the financial capacity to be able to develop those sorts of initiatives as yet.
Simone:
Yep, great, thank you. We’ve got another from Douglas, will NLE be making NLE branded value added bushfood products, or more focused on selling produce to consumers and food businesses?
Alan:
Well both, but very much whether it’s the bushfood side of things or with the honey with our own branding with the NLE branding with the Ngooka honey etcetera, we’ll certainly be looking to one have our own brand in relation to that, but also to add value to various products and those sorts of things as well. Which is one of the things we’re looking at at the moment, and I’m not going to give too much detail. But we’re looking at ways in which we can utilise the wattle seed and bushfoods and those sorts of things for a whole range of additives [0:48:05.6] to other products that contribute to that downstream processing side of things, and it gives us a range of options in regards to products. And as we do that we would either be developing those ourselves as an NLE brand, or where we were working with others it’d be co-branded with NLE as one of the key producers of that particular product.
Simone:
Great, cool. I had a question around that actually if I might, you said only 1% of bushfoods currently sold are from Indigenous people, is that correct?
Alan:
Yeah, yep.
Simone:
And you said NLE would become its own brand for consumers I guess to offer a bit more transparency in what’s actually going on. Is there any kind of certification process or anything? I know over time we’ve started to see more and more on food labels, so the consumers really have a choice and are really informed in what they’re buying, you think about organic food but there has been no transparency as far as I’m concerned around this. So I was just curious if there’s anything else aside from your NLE brand that is going to facilitate greater transparency for consumers.
Alan:
I would certainly hope so over time. And I think one of the other key things from–well a whole range of various sorts of things related to Indigenous produce, but in particular say the bushfoods is the intellectual property that goes with that, and so we’re very conscious of that in relation to this as well. And there’s been a lot of exploitation of Aboriginal knowledge over time by a range of areas, but particularly pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, those sorts of areas etcetera, and taking that Indigenous intellectual knowledge and then turning it into a product with very little to no benefit coming back to those Aboriginal people. Just on that one broadly from an Australian perspective, Australia has signed but not ratified its participation in Nagoya Protocol, which is an international protocol around recognising Indigenous rights and IP and those sorts of things.
And so because of the Commonwealth’s lack of desire to do that, it leaves Australia and its Aboriginal people in a really vulnerable position in comparison to other countries such as Canada and New Zealand with their Indigenous people, where they through their countries signing up to Nagoya Protocol and then developing further legislation at a national level. The implications for not doing things like benefit sharing agreements and that sort of stuff is quite substantial on corporations and organisations if they don’t do that, whereas in Western Australia and in Australia, Aboriginal people are very vulnerable from that exploitation, and unfortunately from a WA perspective we’ve got the weakest legislation in Australia. So that’s where from the developing this side of things we’re doing it in a very cautious way, and ensuring that we don’t accidentally divulge any IP knowledge as a part of that process.
Amanda:
Makes sense.
Simone:
Yeah that’s great. And I noticed Douglas just put a few articles in the chat there too if anyone’s interested. Kevin’s just added the Australian Native Foods & Botanicals Board is very sensitive to the need for Indigenous IP to be recognised, and is supportive of Indigenous businesses to create wealth from their traditional knowledge and products. And Dana just stated the same thing there as well.
Alan:
Yeah, there’s also another organisation that’s been recently established in relation to the bushfoods industry which is wholly Aboriginal, the Board is wholly Aboriginal. Whereas ANFAB a lot of the Board are non-Indigenous, and it’s been primarily driven by non-Indigenous people in the past, there’s a greater Indigenous participation in it now, but ANFAB is not necessarily–or certainly not all Aboriginal Board members etcetera. Whereas there has been a new organisation established that is 100% Aboriginal controlled etcetera at that national level.
Simone:
Oh great, thanks Alan, that’s really interesting. Do you have another one?
Amanda:
Look I’ve actually got a whole list of questions that I just don’t have time to ask tonight, so maybe we might have to do this again some other time. I am mindful of the time so we might wrap it up, I’ll save my questions for later. But I’ve just found this a really fantastic opportunity to listen to your stories, and I know Alan we’ve met before briefly, but it was really nice to hear more. And Madeline just loved hearing your story, thanks so much for coming in last minute, it was fantastic. I think for me obviously at Farming Together for us we really centre everything we do around the importance of relationships, and the idea that what we do in business is good for people, good for land and good for business.
So I really enjoyed feeling that, that resonated with the business model that you presented tonight as well, and the way the NLE group approaches everything they do. Another thing that I really loved about the model that you presented was the idea that farmers have the independence, and they’re empowered to make decisions in their own business, but as part of a collective they also have an interdependence on each other as well, that by working together they can enhance the value or the benefits and share them as a group, so I really appreciated seeing that in the model as well. I’m not sure if you’ve got anything to add?
Simone:
I got a sense of that, especially when you were sharing Madeline, I loved hearing your story, because I know there can be a lot of barriers to becoming involved in a co-operative. And I’d be fascinated to hear more about your story at some point, just in terms of getting involved and what that meant for you, and some of those barriers maybe that you had to overcome. But it was wonderful to hear about the benefits that you’ve been experiencing so far since last year.
Amanda:
And I was actually just going to add to that and say we’d actually love the opportunity to share both your stories through our Farming Together readership, so if you’d love to have your stories shared with a whole lot of farmers across the country we’d love to have that opportunity to share it. And also if anyone who’s listening tonight would like to get in touch with either Alan or Madeline and they don’t have your contact details, we’d be happy to make that connection for you. And I noticed Madeline that you made a call out to be connected with all farmers that are doing interesting things in your space, we’d also be really happy to connect you with some people that we know that we think are doing some amazing things in your region as well. You probably already know them, but we love bringing good people together at Farming Together. So thanks to you both so much for such a fascinating night.
Simone:
Lots of thanks going on in the chat too.
Amanda:
Oh I noticed that, oh yep.
Simone:
Brilliant initiative. Thank you both for sharing. Applause applause, thanks so much to both Madeline and Alan. Thanks for using this platform to promote the important work you’re doing to a potentially very wide audience. So a huge thank you to you both and the work you’re doing, it’s brilliant.
Alan:
Yeah and look from an NLE perspective I think that’s one of the things we recognise as an organisation as well is we’re there to–obviously our key beneficiaries need to be our members, but broader than that is the whole exposing people to the fact that there actually are Aboriginal corporations out there that are operating enterprises and those sorts of things, land based enterprises. But also I think is that whole bringing people together from an Aboriginal and a non-Aboriginal perspective, and that information sharing and knowledge and building one nation.
Amanda:
Absolutely, yep we hear you. And so in case anyone has loved this webinar so much that they want to listen to it again, we’re going to have the recording available on our website and we’ll email that out as well to everyone, but please also send us through any questions or if you want to get in touch. So thanks again to you both Alan and Madeline, and I look forward to staying in touch and keeping up to date. And I think now I might briefly mention our next week’s webinar, which is our final in a series of seven which is Talking About Your Generation – Planning for Success in Succession. So we know succession planning is a really important topic in agriculture today, and we’ve got some great guest speakers who are talking about their different approaches, quite innovative approaches to being able to stay on the farm and retire at the same time, so we really look forward to bringing you that one next week. I think that’s pretty much it for us for the night, so thanks again for joining us everyone, thanks for the great questions tonight, and to our fantastic guests, we really appreciate your time.
Simone:
Yeah.
Alan:
Thank you, cheers.
Madeline:
Thank you.
Simone:
Thanks Alan, thanks Madeline, thank you everyone. Good night or good afternoon [Chuckles].
[End of Webinar]
