Governing the boundaries of viability economic expertise and the production of the 'low-income farm problem' in Australia

In the last thirty-five years, the economic viability of farmers both in Au stralia and internationally has assumed increasing political prominence wit h governments seeking to restructure agricultural industries. With referenc e to Australia, it has been argued increasingly by politicians, economists and farm organizations that some farmers have little prospect of survival, and require government assistance to exit the industry in the claimed inter ests of improved national productivity. However, viability has not always b een governed in this way. In fact, the categorization of farmers on the bas is of their capacity to earn an 'adequate' income emerged only in the late- 1960s. Through an examination of the emergence, from 1967 to 1971, of 'low- income' farms as a national problem, this paper shows how 'problems' of res tructuring are constituted discursively as objects of knowledge. Applying a Foucauldian-inspired genealogy of government, I reconstruct the authoritie s and forms of knowledge through which a low-income problem was constituted and assembled in a knowable form. Of particular significance in this paper is how economic expertise assumed prominence as key authorities in constit uting previous collectivist forms of assistance as irrational, and in linki ng the future viability of Australian agriculture to the theories and pract ices of agricultural economists.