IT is early Friday morning and Dr Gwendolyn Hyslop is prepped and ready for a three-day journey by foot along the rural pathways that transverse the hilly mountainous region of Bhutan in the Himalayas.
The University of Sydney researcher spoke to The Fassifern Guardian from her posting some 3000 metres above sea level, she sounded chipper and excited about a project her team had only just started using a $380,000 ARC grant.
Dr Hyslop is one of five Australian researchers studying the domestication history and spread of Buckwheat and Job’s Tears.
They hope the outcome will create a future where food is easier to source because both grains have an ability to nourish people as well as animals like cattle, chickens, pigs and sheep.
The team’s quest begins at Bhutan, a country with rugged mountains and dense forests that have long rendered it almost inaccessible to the outside world.
It is here ancient uses for the two super grains will be explored and origins decoded in the hope Australia can benefit from the findings.
Job’s Tears can be used as cattle feed in the same way as corn, their cultivation is easy and they are a hardy crop, thriving in conditions other cereal crops struggle with.
Humans too can benefit from eating them as they are high in potassium, iron, calcium, fibre and low in fat.
Similarly, Buckwheat is an excellent source of fibre, riboflavin, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, copper and manganese.
It is also incredibly easy to grow.
Pulling all these factors together is what’s led Dr Hyslop’s team up the mountain.
Somehow the ancients knew these grains could persist and thrive no matter the conditions.
Looking backwards at a time when people ate purely to sustain life will enable researchers to bring tools for survival into the future.
Dr Hyslop’s job is that of a linguist and she studies languages as spoken by the different ancient peoples to find connections to a common food source.
Her current assignment is to connect Buckwheat and Jobs Tears backwards, then find a way to encourage modern cultivation in an era
where climate change is challenging food production.

“In the eastern Himalayas there are really steep slopes and it’s hard to ha