\u201cWe\u2019ve also seen second-round effects of the closure start to emerge, with elevated energy costs feeding into broader inflation expectations<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has taken a bit of the wind out of farmers\u2019 sails, and it\u2019s hardly surprising sentiment has come back a little bit this quarter \u2013 especially given the survey concluded prior to the positive developments we\u2019ve seen in regard to the conflict over recent days.\u201d <\/p>\n
Despite the dip in sentiment from last quarter, Weir said farmers remained broadly optimistic about the year ahead. <\/p>\n
\u201cGiven everything that\u2019s happening around the world, it\u2019s really pleasing to see farmer confidence holding up so strongly. <\/p>\n
\u201cOff the back of strong demand from major overseas markets, pricing outlooks for all our key agri commodities remain healthy. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this is fuelling farmers\u2019 confidence that another profitable season lies ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Own farm business performance<\/p>\n
As with confidence in the broader agri economy, the survey found farmers remained upbeat about the prospects for their own businesses, but less so than in March. <\/p>\n
Weir said the net reading on this measure had fallen to +13% from +36% previously, with farmers across all sector groupings recording lower confidence in their own businesses. <\/p>\n
\u201cSheep and beef producers continue to be the most optimistic of all farmers, with tight global supply and strong demand supporting a positive outlook for red meat.<\/p>\n
\u201cFour in ten sheep and beef farmers now expect their own farm performance to improve in the year ahead, with only one in twenty expecting it to worsen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weir said horticulturalists remained the least optimistic sector, with an even split between those expecting performance to improve and those expecting it to worsen over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile kiwifruit and several other horticultural subsectors are performing well, the outlook for others, like viticulture, is more challenging, and this is likely to have contributed to the lower overall score amongst horticulturalists on this measure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rabobank New Zealand general manager for country banking, Bruce Weir.<\/p>\n
Investment intentions lower but still strong<\/p>\n
The survey found that New Zealand farmers\u2019 investment intentions were marginally lower than last quarter, with 32% (unchanged) expecting to increase investment and only 12% (from 8%) expecting investment to fall. <\/p>\n
This pushed the net reading on this measure down to +20% from +24% previously.<\/p>\n
Weir said this remained a positive result.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we dig into the data, we see that on-farm infrastructure and new plant\/machinery are some of the key areas farmers are looking to invest in.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said this was seen at last week\u2019s National Fieldays, with the event organisers reporting near-record attendance numbers and many retailers reporting strong sales.<\/p>\n
Listen to Jamie Mackay interview Bruce Weir on The Country below:<\/p>\n
Land price expectations<\/p>\n
The survey found that farmers expected rural land prices to increase modestly over the coming 12 months.<\/p>\n
Weir said about a third of farmers were expecting land prices to increase over the year ahead, with only 8% expecting a fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a weaker result than when we last measured land price expectations six months ago \u2013 when close to half of farmers were anticipating a lift \u2013 but does highlight a broad belief among farmers that prices will head north from here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rabobank New Zealand general manager for country banking, Bruce Weir, said the unrest in the Middle East had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1443,126743,3017,26215,138,3013,2516,2950,802,127,59776,219,3233,12026,12967,1874,226,13484,71830,700,111,139,69,17695,1523,2989,26214,13120,10715,3175,8822,379,2963],"class_list":["post-481332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-about","tag-agri","tag-ahead","tag-broader","tag-business","tag-but","tag-concern","tag-confidence","tag-costs","tag-despite","tag-dips","tag-economy","tag-farm","tag-farmer","tag-farmers","tag-found","tag-growing","tag-higher","tag-input","tag-latest","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-outlook","tag-over","tag-positive","tag-rabobank","tag-remain","tag-remains","tag-rural","tag-survey","tag-year","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}