Farmers were among the prime targets of the propaganda of economic rationalism. However, farmers have been amongst those most severely affected by the economic rationalist agenda. One convenient measure of the economic aspect of the crisis in agriculture is the portion of farm income that is consumed by costs.
Most Australian farms are family farms, owned and operated by husband and wife in partnership.
Though this is a very stable structure, the family farmer can, in the end, rely only on his or her own resources. The rapid pace of economic change, and the benefits of economies of scale, inevitably give large corporate organisations a competitive edge, particularly in the very profitable sectors. Corporate farms occur mainly in the meat industry. In the beef industry, most of the major feedlots in Queensland and NSW are fully or partly owned by Japanese trading companies. As the Catholic Social Justice Commission pointed out in late 1994, if nothing was done to help the rural sector, family farmers could supply only what was needed to make up any shortfall in regular suppliers' deliveries.