Hamish McKay: The Country spokesperson on the latest Farmer Confidence survey

The latest Farmer Confidence survey shows farmers are seeing one of the highest lifts in confidence in recent memory.

The July survey shows the rural mood has improved significantly this year, rebounding from record lows 12 months ago.

The Country's Hamish McKay explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And running the country dot Co dot In said this
week for us as Hamish Mackay who joins us now
not need to talk to you again, Hamish, and can
I say you're looking good?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Oh? I think fifty five kilos off does help the old,
the old, get the old carcass around, if you know
what I mean.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Yeah, Now, you guys have been talking about a rural
rural divide. We've heard about the rural urban divide, but
this is a rural rural divide. Are you trying to
suggest that farmers are not of one mind?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yes? Well, you know, the the egg Proud organization came
out quite a you know, a year or two ago
and said, look, there is no one way, but we
have to be one, you know, if we want to
if farmers want to make some real progress here. And
there's nothing wrong with farm gate prices at the moment,
but they'd never be agreeing enough so to speak, to

(00:46):
put together something like the Dutch with as a farmer's
party that actually gets into parliament. It's a little bit
of tall poppy. There was too great. A great example
was Jeff Ross's and Jeff and Justin Ross's Lake Harwi
a station where they had the they had the actresses
at the bottom of the shearing porthole and the sheep
went down, and rural New Zealand just went into this,
you know, off the war kind of attack on what

(01:08):
they were. Who really cares? And then a week later
the beautiful Ruinui station which has run just north of Taire,
happy old school traditional farm, well it turns out that
the lake harwere and ruin It couldn't be more different
in some people's eyes, but in fact that they shear
so many of the same sort of ideas and principles,
and so you know, it's it is not to be fair.

(01:29):
It is not a united front out there in the
rural space, and it probably needs to be.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
And to be fair. Jeff Ross had the last laugh
about how we are stationed as well, because only weeks
after that, Conde Nas came out and gave them a
fair star rating for their accommodation facilities and basically they're
they're turning a profit where many New Zealand fans aren't.
You know, so hello, and I did rather like the
white shade that they painted their shearing shed so you
can see the blood spatters.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yes, you know, look, look, you know I mean, how
could you, you know, I just I love what they
do there. It's different, but it's still great. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Now we've got a farmer confidence survey out this week
and farmers, yeah, farmers are pretty happy.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, look very farmers a huge lift in their confidence
and they are at that plus ten dollars per kilogram
of milk solids, which can represent a pretty good year
for those who produce at a good level sheep and
beef and lamb. Lamb's being very strong, beef very very strong.
So though the confidence across those sectors is definitely out,

(02:29):
not so much for the grain and the seed and
the arable guys that they are struggling a little bit
and their confidence is down just there the volatility of
the global market for them, and also there's you know,
things like you know, having to deal with pests and
disease and then yet we get an outfit like Bayer
having to shut down their New Zealand Research Development arm

(02:50):
and so you know, a fear few challenges for our
arable farmers. But you'd have to say, across the board,
farmer confidence definitely up.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
And that's a good thing because it all flows through
and I thank you very much Hemus Rakai from the Country,
the Country, dot co, dot m Z.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
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