Paper short abstract:

This paper combines perspectives from valuation studies and research on infrastructure to investigate the changing practices of farmland valuation in the context of 'financialization'.

Paper long abstract:

This paper combines perspectives from valuation studies and research on infrastructure to investigate how farmland is valued in Australia. Combining these two approaches, I conceptualize farmland indexes and reports, as well as the calculation techniques, devices and social practices that aim at making farmland comparable and commensurable with other assets as 'infrastructures of farmland valuation'. I will demonstrate how farmland values are socially constructed by those who perform valuations 'on the ground'. At the same, I examine how the infrastructures of farmland valuation, and the changing actors and interests involved, influence and potentially change the very process of valuation itself. I am particularly interested to explore how valuation practices, along with the social constructions and perceptions of price/value relationships, change if the valued object becomes 'financialised', i.e. turned into a financial asset class. I investigate this question by using the example of Australian farmland as a financial asset class 'in the making'.