The redefined role of finance in Australian agriculture

Title
The redefined role of finance in Australian agriculture
Publication Date
2018
Author(s)
Larder, Nicolette
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8119-4879
Email: nlarder@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:nlarder
Sippel, Sarah Ruth
Argent, Neil
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4005-5837
Email: nargent@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:nargent
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Routledge
Place of publication
Australia
DOI
10.1080/00049182.2017.1388555
UNE publication id
une:23388
Abstract
In their highly influential teaching and research text Global Restructuring: The Australian Experience Fagan and Webber set out a substantivist, institutionalist and multi-scalar account of the Australian space economy's relatively rapid and radical globalisation after 1980. This paper extends Fagan and Webber's global restructuring thesis to Australian farming and agriculture, connecting historical and more recent scholarship on agriculture-finance relations. We highlight two areas where finance has fundamentally reshaped the agricultural sector. First, we argue that financial restructuring has shifted the relationship between farmers and lenders. Second, we suggest that under the logics of finance, Australian land and water are emerging as 'alternative' financial asset classes. The paper demonstrates that Australian agriculture has become subject to a comprehensive process of finance-driven economic restructuring over recent decades. Regulatory changes since the 1980s have resulted in an agricultural sector where finance's growing role is normalised as a part of the sector's operation. Importantly, we stress the paramount role governments have played in redefining agri-finance relationships in Australia by promoting and providing the regulatory framework for processes of marketisation and assetisation, thereby making agriculture attractive to subsequent financial investments. Finance does not operate on its own but relies on the state's crucial role in incentivising and setting the conditions for finance capital.
Link
Citation
Australian Geographer, 49(3), p. 397-418
ISSN
1465-3311
0004-9182
Start page
397
End page
418

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