Exploring Migrant\u27s Contributions to Agriculture: The Story of Of Italians in the Sunraysia Region

Geographical research on human-environment relations has paid minimal attention to cultural diversity, particularly in Australia. Yet migrants make up a large proportion of the Australian population, including in some rural and regional areas. The aim of this thesis is to understand the processes by which migrants negotiate their histories – in particular agricultural knowledges, skills and practices developed in countries of origin – in their post-migration location. It does so through the case of Italian migrants and their descendants in the Sunraysia Region. Employing a mixed methods approach, empirical data was sourced through semistructured interviews and farm/garden tours. In seeking to explain Italians’ considerable influence over agricultural practices in the Sunraysia Region, the research participants emphasised perceived Italian cultural attributes: a strong work ethic, a family orientation and inventiveness. However, taking a political ecology approach, this thesis concludes that the role of cultural attributes needs to be understood alongside structural forces and environmental factors that have shaped farming practices in the Sunraysia Region, and Italian farming identities, over the period of a century. While this thesis focuses specifically on Italian farmers, it prompts reflection on the barriers and opportunities that confront new arrivals to the region, and which may inhibit their capacities to introduce their own diverse agricultural knowledges and practices in the present day

Experimenting with agricultural diversity: Migrant knowledge as a resource for climate change adaptation

Climate change poses serious challenges for agriculture and adaptation to its impacts is widely understood to be necessary - now and into the future. This paper focuses on Australia\u27s horticulturally productive and culturally diverse Sunraysia region. Due to the high seasonal labour demands of horticulture, this region has a large population of temporary and permanent migrants. Many were farmers in their countries of origin. We bring together literature on climate change adaptation in agriculture, and migration and agriculture, to identify a common theme: experimentation. The former emphasises the need for experimentation in uncertain times, and the latter draws attention to the experimental food growing capacities of migrants. We argue that migrant farmers\u27 desire to grow culturally important crops in their post-migration contexts, alongside their experience with diverse environmental conditions, constitute a poorly recognised adaptive resource. When migrants have access to farmland to demonstrate their agricultural capacities, migration can expand the suite of adaptive options available. This paper draws these experimental threads together, alongside empirical evidence gathered from qualitative research in the Sunraysia region. We conclude by describing an experimental, action-oriented project which seeks to explore what happens when migrant farmers are, quite literally, given the space to show the broader community what they know and what they can do