Thank you for agreeing to help us with our survey.

To answer the questions you will need your most recent farm accounts.

Are they for Year ending 31 March 1998

(Tick one) OR Year ending 31 May 1998

OR Year ending 30 June 1998

If you own more than one farming business, please treat them as one farm for the purpose of this survey.

1. What is the total size of your farm? Total hectares __________

(Include only land you own) OR Total acres __________

2. Which of the following categories best Dairy

describes your predominant farm type? Sheep and/or beef

(The category that produces Cropping

the most farm income) Horticulture

(Please tick only one box) Other (Please describe) _______________

3. If you are a dairy farmer:

Which one of the following statements best describes your situation?

Owner of farm land, and do not have a sharemilker

(Please tick only one box) Owner of farm land, and have a sharemilker

Sharemilker, and also own some farm land

Sharemilker, and own no farm land

4. For your most recent accounting year, what was your

Total Farm Income from all sources (excluding GST) ? $__________

5. What are the values of the assets owned by your farming business?

Land, improvements and buildings $ __________

(Capital value)

Plant, equipment and machinery $ __________

(including tractors and all motor vehicles)

All Livestock $ __________

Other stock on hand, to be sold later (e.g. wool, grain, produce) $ __________

Dairy company shares and capital notes $ __________

Other on-farm investments (e.g. shares in farmer co-operatives $ __________

such as fertiliser companies, meat works, farm suppliers)

Off-farm investments (e.g. money on deposit, public company shares) $ __________

Loans from the farm business to family members $ __________

Current Assets (including sundry debtors, accounts receivable, $ __________

credit balances in current account)

Other farm-related assets (please describe ______________________ ) $ __________

TOTAL VALUE OF ALL FARM BUSINESS ASSETS $ __________

(for those farms providing data for both years)

A number of other institutions collect data on agricultural sector debt.

The Meat and Wool Economic Service of NZ (M&WES), formerly the NZ Meat and Wool Boards Economic Service (NZM & WBES) collect financial data from a sample of New Zealand sheep and beef farms as part of the New Zealand Sheep and Beef Farm Survey. The 1997/98 Sheep and Beef Farm Survey was the 47^th annual survey of sheep and beef farms carried out by the M&WES of NZ and, as a series, forms the most comprehensive and long-run data series for sheep and beef farms in New Zealand. The survey collects data from some 544 sheep and beef farms in New Zealand, a 3.23 percent sample of the 16 820 sheep and beef farms, of all types, in New Zealand.

We use liabilities data for the all-class average sheep and beef farm to compare with our data.

The Dairy Board first published economic data on dairy farms in their "Economic Survey of Factory Supply Dairy Farms" in 1989. The data are based on a stratified random sample of 382 dairy farmers throughout New Zealand. The closing balance sheet data for 1987/88 is the same as the opening data for 1988/89 so we have been able to use the data in the 1988/89 survey to obtain closing assets and liabilities for 1987/88.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) collect data on total agricultural sector debt. This data is supplied to RBNZ by the various trading banks; however, published data is not broken down by lender, type of loan, or purpose of loan.

Total agricultural sector debt was $10,815.6 million as at 30/06/1998. Prior to 1994 agricultural sector debt was aggregated with the fishing and forestry sectors.

Published RBNZ data on agricultural sector debt do not include information or numbers of farms to which agricultural sector debt related so it is not possible to estimate accurately the level of debt per farm. However, if we use 66 000 as the total number of farms of all types (1996: Statistics New Zealand 1998), debt per farm is $174,100.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry undertake a Farm Monitoring round annually to inform the Minister of agricultural production trends and financial performance on typical farms within the various agricultural sectors. These reports are not based on a random sample of farms but they do collate data from farms for a number of model farm types in geographic regions. These data contain information of the cost of debt servicing per farm but no data are reported on farm liabilities.

A.C. Nielsen collect data on farm debt as part of their Rural Banking Monitor survey. The data relates to various types of loan such as floating rate mortgages, fixed rate mortgages etc. The survey is not designed to determine overall debt levels on farms but rather collects data on various products sold by the banking industry. For some liabilities (dairy company liabilities, for example) no data are collected; this means that total loans data are not comparable to our data on total liabilities.

We approached a number of trading banks which have large numbers of farm clients and asked if they would provide us with typical liabilities data for their farmer clients or aggregated average totals by farm type. In particular, we approached the National Bank, which has the largest number of farmer clients, having taken over the mortgages of the Rural Bank. All the trading banks we approached declined to provide us with information. They do, however, provide aggregated industry totals as part of their reporting requirements to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. We were not able to obtain these data for individual banks.

A number of accounting firms collate data reporting average physical and financial performance on various types of farm. This is primarily done for the information of their clients. One of the purposes of the data is to allow clients to compare their financial performance with that of other farms (top, average etc.) within the same farm type. We present data from two accounting firms based in Canterbury as a comparison to our data.

Statistics New Zealand have not published Agricultural Statistics since 1996. They are currently undertaking an agricultural survey but this data is not yet available. The last survey on liabilities undertaken by Statistics New Zealand was the one reported by MAF in 1991 (Pomeroy & Reynolds 1991).