“It was clear from this research, and similar previous work, that farmers were content to simply carry on working their current farm,” she said.
Having reasonable time off and holidays scored 4.3 out of 5 on the survey.
“Clearly life has other objectives than just profit for these farmers.”
Succession was not rated a high concern either.
“Overall, many of the small dairy farmers were not interested in having their children take over from them.
“Perhaps they believed their farm was too small and the children would be better off in another profession,” Westbrooke said.
Debt reduction and 10% production increases over the next 10 years were found to be top priorities for non-expanders.
The study also identified a sub-group of younger famers who were interested in expanding. They tended to be the more entrepreneurial and conscientious of surveyed farmers.
“They also have a stronger belief in being able to control outcomes than their counterparts. Yet they all farm under the same conditions.”
All surveyed farmers expressed interest in learning how to handle environmental issues, which were considered a growing problem.
Most respondents preferred face-to-face means of getting information as opposed to computer systems.
Westbrooke along with Dr Peter Nuthall of Lincoln’s Faculty of Agribusiness and Commerce did the survey, which spanned 330 randomly selected farmers running small dairy farms for the small farmers’ organisation, Smaller Milk and Supply Herds.
DairyNZ and OneFarm funded the project.
