Friday essay: I’m an Aboriginal farmer. But a romanticised idea of agriculture writes Black people out of the farming story

Friday essay: I’m an Aboriginal farmer. But a romanticised idea of agriculture writes Black people out of the farming story

I grew up with Dorothea Mackellar and The Man from Snowy River, where ragged mountain ranges met the colt from Old Regret. I grew up with the idea that the Australian bush meant endless possibility to breed livestock and find gold in every rock overturned. But these practices of clearing and marking ownership through decree of unproductive agricultural land pushed mob further from their traditional lands. It discredited their voices and their con…