Who do growers trust? Engaging biosecurity knowledges to negotiate risk management in the north Queensland banana industry, Australia

This paper considers the role of trust in biosecurity knowledge and biosecurity risk management practices. In particular, it considers how trust influences where and why biosecurity stakeholders source knowledge. Drawing on a case study of banana growers in northern Australia, we use Stern and Coleman’s (2015) framework to distinguish four different kinds of trust active in the industry: dispositional trust; rational trust; affinitive trust; and procedural trust. We show that trust may be integral to how growers source, use and adapt available biosecurity knowledge in their on-farmbiosecurity practices. We end by considering how governance approaches and strategies can better support farmers for improved biosecurity risk management outcomes.