Executive Summary
This report examines the nature and extent of restructuring among hill farmers in North Island. In particular, it evaluates the impediments to restructuring and the on-going changes in rural communities and service centres.
The research focussed on three such communities - Taumaranui (Ruapehu); Wairoa/Gisborne and Dannevirke (Tararua). The approach adopted involved an extensive literature review, the use of a wide range of published and unpublished data and 39 interviews with farmers, ex-farmers, officials of Rural Support Trusts, and other agricultural experts. In addition, extensive community interviews were conducted with teachers, local government officials, retailers and community workers to develop the community studies.
The report documents a substantial level of on-going restructuring in the hill country, with between one-quarter and one-third of all land involved in some form of transaction in the previous six years. However, the report finds that the process of restructuring is not simple and takes many different forms that involve both economically "successful" and "unsuccessful" producers.
The approach of individual farmers and farm households to restructuring is shaped by a wide array of personal, family, community, and financial factors. The report argues that whilst the decisions of farmers can be understood within a narrow economic framework, the timing of change is intimately connected to the inseparable link between farms as business units and the family security associated with farms. In this sense the report maintains that rather than being pushed off the land, farmers can be seen as being pulled off the land by a diversity of forces. This link can explain the persistence of cash flow poor farmers on the land, where it might have been expected that they would decided to exit or restructure. More broadly, this finding leads the report to suggest that the market assumption that low demand for agricultural products, signalled by low prices, as a trigger for restructuring needs to be reconsidered.
In comparing the decisions, and actions, of farmers across the three study regions the report concluded that differences in decision-making could be attributed more to the individual circumstances of framers, rather than the community milieu in which they were embedded.
In looking to the future the report maintains that whilst there is a significant link between the health of the farming sector and the concomitant health of rural communities, an emerging issue relates to role of education in maintaining the vibrancy of rural communities. In particular access to good quality compulsory education up to Year 13 was identified as being a key element in keeping school-leavers in rural communities.
Contact for Enquiries
Rural Affairs Coordinator
Sector Performance Policy
MAF Policy
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
PO Box 2526
Wellington
NEW ZEALAND
Phone: +64 4 894 0675
Fax: +64 4 4 894 0745
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