It’s a mixed bag for farmers – while faith in the agri-economy trends down, confidence in personal business is on the up.
Around 450 farmers across the country were surveyed for the latest Rabobank Rural Confidence Survey, a quarterly study run since 2003.
The numbers show farmers’ confidence in the agri-economy has dropped from -16% last quarter to -25%.
Faith in personal businesses is slightly up, from -9% last quarter to -1%.
Rabobank chief executive Todd Charteris said the split results were unusual.
He said while there’s often higher assurance in personal business than the economy, the two, almost always move in the same direction.
“It is hard to put a finger on why this is the case, but one possible reason might be that farmer concerns about the prospects for New Zealand’s overall economy are feeding into pessimism about the prospects for the agri economy – and we did see a few comments in the verbatim responses to the agri economy question that support this view.”
Federated Farmers Mid Canterbury president David Acland said locals are under significant pressure for several reasons.
“Money and the cost of interest rates is the big one. But that’s not isolated to the farming industry, everyone’s struggling with interest rates.”
Faith in farm viability – how feasible it is to continue operations from year to year – has increased nationwide.
7% of surveyed farmers say their business is unviable, down 2% from last quarter. Businesses that were perceived as “easily viable” sit at 16%.
Acland said those numbers would be different for Mid Canterbury.
“[It’s] quite a different beast to the rest of NZ. A lot of dairy and arable, not so much sheep and beef.”
Sheep and beef farmers were found to have the largest positive jump in outlook across the country, from -31% last survey to -17%.
But he’s optimistic about the rest of the year.
“Once we get past the shortest day, we’re on the way out and the mood lifts.
“It’s always coldest right before morning.”
Charteris said given the importance of the sector to the wider economy, it was really essential that everyone involved with the industry bands together to support the country’s food producers and to get things moving in the right direction.
By Anisha Satya
