Smaller scale NZ dairy farmers: providing a context for future innovations

Abstract

There is a wide variation in the scale of NZ dairy herds; 20 per cent of farmers manage more than 600 cows, while 61 per cent of farmers have herds with less than 400 cows (Dairy Statistics 2014). The smaller to medium scale farms are important due to the proportion of the industry they represent, yet little research has been conducted in New Zealand into their particular needs or context. Understanding these farmers' goals, plans and challenges is critical to developing innovations, and then extension programs tailored specifically to their needs. Farmers with less than 400 cows were surveyed (n=346) by telephone in October and November 2014. Analysis of the data is ongoing. On average respondents' milked 240 cows on 97ha, employed staff (0.76 FTE) and had a high level of financial equity (67 per cent) in their business. Respondents' strongly agreed that earning maximum sustainable net cash returns and planning for reasonable holidays and leisure time was important, but were neutral regarding the importance of passing the farm onto family members. Farmers were planning no major changes in farm ownership, but the majority were planning to lift production by more than 10 per cent, reduce the already low debt levels further, and employ a non-family employee to do the majority of the work. The key challenges identified by the farmers were environmental regulation and compliance', followed by 'finding suitable staff', then various capital and cashflow factors were considered moderately challenging. The key three outcomes of the research to date are: 1 . A scenario of smaller dairy farmers' most likely future situation has emerged, providing a context for development of future programs and innovations, 2. The key challenges to smaller scale farmers plans have been identified and ranked, 3. A range of exit strategies need to be developed for smaller scale farmers without successors, which meets both their financial and personal needs.