What current structures operate in New Zealand large scale sheep and beef farming

Abstract

Historically, New Zealand farms have predominately been in family ownership, over time ownership of the land passed from one generation to the next. Over the previous five years, rapidly escalating land prices have made it very difficult for farming families to achieve this. However, there have been some farming operations that through good business planning, foresight and robust farming systems, been able to achieve scale at the expense of smaller holdings. So I posed the question, "IS IT THE WAY OF THE FUTURE?" To answer the question I undertook interviews with five North Island based farming operations ranging in size from 18000su and 1325Ha to 185000su and 45000Ha. The aim of the interviews was to get a feeling for the success of these operations, what if any concerns existed, and "is it the way of the future"?