A project that could help realise the full potential of Australia’s bush food industry has earned Mullumbimby Farmers Market stallholder, Rebecca Barnes, a place in the finals of the NSW-ACT Rural Women’s Award.

Rebecca is one of four finalists in the running for the award, which will be announced in Sydney next month.

Nominees were asked to submit a project idea that would benefit rural and regional Australia. The winner receives a $10,000 bursary to bring their idea to life, with the runner up receiving $5000 and other finalists receiving $1000 each.

Rebecca, who has been involved in the native food industry for almost 20 years, and has run her bush food stall, Playing With Fire, at the Mullumbimby Farmers Market for the past five years, says her project idea is a two-day bush food conference to be held in Bundjalung country.

“What we really need is to attract new entrants into the industry. There’s just not enough happening at the moment in cropping and growing.

“So the idea is to get the people who’ve been in the industry for quite a while to tell their story and hopefully attract some new entrants.”

She said the conference would bring together people from all over the country.

“The industry has had quite haphazard growth and it’s rather disjointed in the way it’s come about. There are people I’ve been dealing with for 15 years and never met because of the geographical distance.

“I’d really like to unite the industry, to get people helping each other and networking and making it all a bit more streamlined.”

Ms Barnes said the potential for the bush food industry was enormous.

“There’s thousands of native foods and we’ve only commercialised 15 of them. But the potential just for those 15 is enormous because they’re hardly being exported. It’s a big world and there’s a really big market out there, and these foods are becoming more and more popular as people get to know them as they realise the quality, the flavour, and the nutritional values.

Ms Barnes said the Northern Rivers was the perfect location for the conference, as almost half of all the commercialised bush foods in Australia are native to the area.

She said it was a real buzz to be a finalist in the awards.

“It’s pretty exciting. I see it as a really good opportunity to try and make a small difference. “

• Find Rebecca’s bush food stall, Playing With Fire, at the Mullumbimby Farmers Market every Friday.