Indigenous grains for healthy people and Country: The revitalisation of Australian native millet, Panicum decompositum R. Br.

Abstract

Aboriginal Nations across Australia managed native grasslands for grain production for tens of millennia. Native millet, Panicum decompositum R. Br., is a perennial C4 cereal grass that grows widely across Australia and was a staple of the Australian Aboriginal diet. Colonisation displaced communities from Country, disrupted seed economies, and imposed ration diets, leaving enduring metabolic disease burdens. Today, nutrition-related chronic diseases disproportionately affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, underscoring the need for solutions that address health, ecology, and sovereignty together. This article synthesises archaeological, ethnographic, ecological, and nutritional evidence to argue that Indigenous-led revitalisation of native grain economies can simultaneously improve metabolic health, regenerate soils and grassland ecosystems, and strengthen cultural continuity. We highlight the agronomic advantages of perennial C4 grasses like native millet (deep-rooting, water-use efficiency, soil carbon accrual) alongside emerging data indicating favourable macronutrient profiles and fibre characteristics for metabolic benefit. Realising this potential requires centring Indigenous governance from project inception – protecting Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, embedding community benefit-sharing across value chains, and ensuring place-based decision making rather than extractive, production-only roles. We outline co-design principles and ethical supply-chain development to prevent the displacement of value-adding activities and ensure access to final foods from producing communities. Indigenous-led native grain systems offer a practical pathway to diversify Australian agriculture, enhance food security in regional and remote communities, and align human health, cultural resurgence, economic self-determination, and planetary stewardship.