100 | A varied recovery in farmer sentiment Positive perceptions vary markedly by sector with dairy farmers leading, and sheep, beef and grazing following amid strong global demand for meat and wool, but arable farmers are lagging at the bottom. Russell Fredric The latest Federated Farmers farmer confidence survey shows an upswing in optimism, but the arable sector does not fare so well, the organisation’s arable industry group executive David Birkett chairman says. The survey shows a significant recovery in farmer sentiment during the past year from “deeply negative” feedback in July 2023 to the strongest positive point since 2017, underscoring the impact of economic stabilisation and government responsiveness to rural concerns, the survey says. However positive perceptions vary markedly by sector with dairy farmers leading, and sheep, beef and grazing following amid strong global demand for meat and wool, but arable farmers are lagging at the bottom due to declining crop prices and market uncertainty. “The challenge at the moment is the prices are pretty static,” David says. “They’re not necessarily dropping but we aren’t getting any premium for [produce] being from New Zealand now. We really are a global price; the price of grain is whatever somebody else can import grain for.” “The things we can do, and the arable farmers have already done probably to a pretty large extent, is just keeping those input costs as low as possible, but they just keep creeping up. We’ve really noticed it in the last two years how the input costs have really increased.” It is good to see the other sectors doing well which will be helpful to arable farmers who supply grain for stock feed, David says. “That will help us get out of the bit of a hole that we are in, but we probably haven’t been this low in profitability for a long time. I’m thinking this is the lowest we’ve seen it maybe since the ‘80s.” The decrease in gross margin between the 2024 and 2025 was about 47% on average, in a sector that has high capital costs for replacement of machinery, he says. Like the rest of the agricultural sector, arable farmers have been feeling squeezed around water rights and irrigation compliance due to both consent renewals under existing regulations – typically around 10 years – and with proposed changes on the near horizon. The Birkett farm is located at Leeston, Canterbury. Covering 200 hectares. Fully irrigated, it is all in crops during summer and also fattens lambs. The last time a consent renewal was applied for the cost was about $9000 to $10,000 for a farm, but David has heard of figures of $100,000 for current renewals. ON FARM » Birkett Farming Ltd “Where it’s coming from is the time that ECAN’s (Environment Canterbury) spending reviewing the consents, the fact that they require you – even though the law doesn’t require it – saying you have to use a consultant.” Further, Federated Farmers believes some requirements in the consent renewals, especially for farmers that have consistently been fully compliant “are quite out of scope we believe necessary for a renewal in consent.” In May this year, the Government opened public consultation on options to reform New Zealand’s freshwater national direction which refers to rules and policies sitting under the Resource Management Act (RMA) that inform how councils develop and implement local plans and rules. The consultation proposes replacing the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 and related regulations with a more practical, efficient, and regionally adaptable system. FERTILISER SPREADING | FARM MAPPING GPS TRACKING | VARIABLE RATE SPREADING LIVESTOCK CARTAGE | DAILY FREIGHT CONCRETE SUPPLIES | GRAIN CARTAGE SHINGLE SUPPLIES | FERTILISER SUPPLIES Leeston: 03 3248 070 | Dunsandel: 03 3254 039 reception@ellesmere.co.nz Outstanding success removing weeds, seeds such as dock, field madder, and fathen 03 302 8115 email: nzof ce@spsnz.co.nz Proudly supporting Birkett Farming Ltd SOUTH PACIFIC SEEDS (NZ) LTD Specialists in Hybrid Vegetable Seed Production Federated Farmers has been advocating strongly to keep the regulations as cost effective and practical as possible, both at a national and regional level, while seeking to put holds on district plans which would add more layers of compliance costs, David says. “The question is, what are these actually going to achieve that a farm environment plan doesn’t already achieve? It feels like we are doing the same thing multiple times.”
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