Market Sizing to Support the Establishment of an Indigenous Agricultural Product Credential  

The Challenge

The world’s oldest continuous living culture holds traditional knowledge and practices that can, among other things, support sustainable growth across the agriculture industry and deliver significant benefits to communities.

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry is considering how First Nations traditional knowledge and practices can be protected and acknowledged in the agricultural product sector.

Indigenous agricultural products are an important market for Australia. Designing the policy settings to support ongoing growth and enable First Nations communities to benefit from, and protect, their rich and deep culture is critical for First Nations peoples. The introduction of an Indigenous agricultural product credential system requires careful consideration, particularly around the criteria for an ‘Indigenous agricultural product’.

The Action

Polis Partners undertook a detailed market sizing analysis for the Indigenous agricultural product market. This involved firstly identifying the types of products which would qualify under such a scheme, as well as the form of Indigenous ownership of the entities producing the products.

The Results

Polis Partners estimated that the market for Indigenous owned and produced agricultural products is a small but growing component of the broader Australian sector. However, it can have a disproportionally larger impact on the First Nations economy, employment and communities, and a credential system would provide a framework that can create new opportunities to accelerate existing Indigenous businesses, increasing the ability to attract more capital investment, and ultimately help grow the First Nations economy more broadly.