Engaging Farmers in Biosecurity: Making Compliance Workable Within a Devolved Responsibility Approach

Devolution of responsibility to farmers and farming industries is an increasingly prominent approach to governing biosecurity risks in countries such as the United Kingdom, Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. However, at the same time, the practices through which farmers exercise increased responsibility are expected to align with centralised biosecurity standards. Research to date argues that the ongoing emphasis on compliance either conflicts with efforts to devolve responsibility or is variously accommodated and adapted to make biosecurity standards locally workable. This article contributes to and advances these debates by investigating how those involved in biosecurity policy development and implementation in Australia deal with compliance as part of their efforts to devolve responsibility for biosecurity to farmers. Drawing upon post-actor-network theory thinking, we identify three broad approaches through which biosecurity stakeholders seek to achieve biosecurity compliance—educative compliance, relational compliance and contextual compliance. Underpinning each of these approaches are several ‘modes of syncretism’ for making compliance and devolved responsibility cohere, some of which cut across different approaches. We argue that the inter-connection of similar modes of syncretism across these approaches adds nuance to debates on the relationship between compliance and devolved responsibility. Our analysis reveals that compliance is folded in multiple ways into the work of engaging farmers in biosecurity. These highlight opportunities for making compliance workable that go beyond accommodation and adaptation. They also show the challenges and tensions likely to be faced by biosecurity stakeholders as they navigate different ways of making compliance and devolved responsibility cohere.