Average total debt per farm was highest for dairy farms ($507,059) and cropping farms ($500,951). Average debt levels on sheep and beef farms ($227,999) were 45 percent of the average debt levels on dairy farms and 46 percent of that on cropping farms. The average total debt on horticultural farms ($166,488) was 30 percent of that on dairy farms and 73 percent of that on sheep and beef farms (Table 11, Fig. 3).

Table 11 Average and median current liabilities, term liabilities, and total liabilities by farm type

About 20 percent of total debt was in the form of current liabilities; current liabilities appeared to be a greater proportion of total debt on cropping farms (26.5 percent) and on horticulture farms (37.7 percent) than on other farm types.

Median total debt (Table 11) by farm type was substantially less than average debt. For sheep and beef, dairy, and cropping farms, median debt was about 65 percent of average debt; the figure for horticulture was 42 percent and for "other" 57 percent. This indicates that average debt levels were substantially skewed by a relatively small number of farms with much higher debt than other farms. Median debt data were not reported in the 1988 report.

Figure 3 Current, term, and total liabilities by farm type (average loan per farm)

Dairy farmers who own land but do not have a sharemilker had average total liabilities similar to those of owners of land who do have a sharemilker (Table 12). Sharemilkers who own some farmland had average total liabilities two-thirds that of dairy farm owners, but more than twice that of sharemilkers who own no land. For sharemilkers who own no land, current liabilities comprised 23 percent of total liabilities whereas, for dairy farmers who own land and do not have a sharemilker, current liabilities were 10 percent of total

Table 12 Liabilities on dairy farms by ownership structure

Average total liabilities increased with farm size across all farm types. This trend was particularly marked for dairy and cropping farms (Fig. 4). For median total liabilities, the trend in increasing debt with farm size is similar to the trend for averages (Fig. 5).

Figure 4 Total liabilities by farm size and farm type (average loan per farm)

Figure 5 Total liabilities by farm size and farm type (median loan per farm)

Many farms had total liabilities of less than $100,000 (Fig. 6) and the larger the size of total liabilities the fewer the farms. Fifty-three percent of horticultural farms had liabilities less than $100,000, as did 48 percent of "other" farms and 41 percent of sheep and beef farms. On the other hand, 35 percent of dairy farms and 28 percent of cropping farms had total liabilities in excess of $600,000.

Figure 6 Proportion of farms in each loan size category by farm type

Figure 7 confirms that, for those farms with total liabilities over $600,000, the amount of the liability increased with size of farm. These very large liabilities appeared to be spread similarly across all the farm types.

Figure 7 Proportion of liabilities over $600,000 by farm size and farm type

Across all farm types, one-quarter of farms had loans from family members (Table 13). The incidence of family loans was greatest on cropping farms, with more than half of these farms having loans from family members. For the total sample, loans from family sources represented 12 percent of total liabilities. Family loans were a particularly large proportion of total liabilities on cropping and "other" farms, and a particularly small proportion of total liabilities on horticulture and dairy farms.

Table 13 Incidence and size of family loans