HORTICULTURAL PRODUCTION AND THE BUSHFOOD INDUSTRY

by John Rayner

Bushfoods are an exciting new group of plants with great potential for further expansion and development both in Australia and overseas. Like any new crop there are issues concerning uses and processing of products and promotion and marketing. However, the bushfoods industry has developed very quickly and has some unique production based problems of its own. Perhaps foremost of these is the need for an industry based on horticultural production (however that may be achieved), rather than one based around wild harvesting of material.

Moving towards a production-based industry brings with it some new challenges. In the first instance this includes improving the generation and exchange of information on bushfood plants.

Agronomic information

There is a paucity of accurate and reliable agronomic and horticultural information on bushfood plants. Species information is often restricted to botanical descriptions and culinary uses of selected plants, with comparatively little in the horticultural domain. Where species have been cultivated there is little published material that would indicate the critical requirements for plant establishment and maintenance and what the origin or source of the plant material was.

What is needed is some basic agronomic information for different plants. This should include:

· optimum environmental and cultural requirements for plant performance, such as planting, nutrition, spacing, pruning, light, water-relations, etc.

· harvest details including the best times/periods for harvest, methods employed, post-harvest treatments to maximise product quality and uniformity.

There is some limited agronomic information on bushfood species produced by Australian Native Produce Industries Pty Ltd (Descriptive catalogue, 1994/5) and in the recent report on "Prospects for the Australian native bushfoods industry" (Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, 1997). These are useful beginnings, but are still very generalised and lack significant cultural information.

This lack of information is partially understandable given the nature of the plants being cultivated and the present stage of industry development. It does however indicate the amount of work still to be undertaken and a range of research and development opportunities.

Plant propagation information

Likewise there is little information in the public domain on propagation protocols for different species. For most bushfood plants, clonal propagation methods will need to be developed to assist with rapid production of improved forms of the plant. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the propagation of many bushfood plants is poor. Typically, cuttings material harvested from wild plants always yields poorer results when compared to material taken from container-grown plants. This is well described in a paper on the propagation of five different species/groups of bushfood plants (McCarthey, 1995) and from the results of trials undertaken at Burnley College. Factors of juvenility, plant pathogens, plant growth stage and unsuitable cuttings material all help to explain this. More propagation research is clearly needed.

Production systems information

Moving bushfood plants from the bush to the farm will be a difficult transition. There has recently been some useful discussion on the merits of different production systems for bushfoods, such as polycultures/permaculture and monocultures(Australian Bushfoods Magazine, Issue 1). Similarly, the report on "Prospects for the Australian native bushfoods industry" (RIRDC, 1997) provided figures on establishment and maintenance costs and anticipated returns for some sixteen bushfood crops. However, this seems very general and appears to have been derived from limited sources of information. Clearly more agronomic information is needed to provide more accurate information to growers on possible returns for selected crops and horticultural approaches for bushfood production.

The future

More research and development is needed into bushfood production. In the meantime details of growers experiences with different crops will provide a means of assisting the exchange of information where so little exists. Certainly, grower-based groups and their newsletters are proving to be a vital resource in this regard. The grouping of a national alliance of regional grower-based groups - the Australian Bushfoods Federation is also crucial to the development of the industry. This group consists at present of the Australian Rainforest Bushfood Industry Association (ARBIA), Southern Bushfood Network and the Queensland Bushfood Cooperative society. The federation as it evolves will be in a position to look at national issues facing the industry and hopefully act as a catalyst for increasing and disseminating information on the horticultural production of bushfood plants.

References

Australian Bushfoods magazine, 1997, Issue 1, Maleny, Qld.

McCarthey, J. 1995, The Australian Native Foods Industry: New Challenges for the Plant Propagator, IPPS combined proceedings, Volume 45.

Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation 1997, Prospects for the Australian native bushfoods industry, (compiled by Graham C. and Hart D.), Research paper No.97/22, RIRDC, Barton, ACT

Illustration: Mentha australis (River Mint) 

About the writer: John Rayner is a Lecturer at Burnley College with a special interest in bush foods.  

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