Jamie Mackay: The Country host on farmer confidence reaching highest level since 2017

Following a significant lift in September, farmer confidence has surged again to the highest level since 2017.

According to Rabobank's final Rural Confidence Survey for 2024,  farmer confidence in the broader agri-economy has risen from 3 percent to 34 percent.

The Country's Jamie Mackay unpacks the factors behind this lift.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining us is Jamie mckaye, Host of the Country Jamie.
Good evening to you, Hie to chat. Great to have
you on. And farmers are feeling good. Confidence is up,
in fact, highest since mid twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, and I don't know whether it's a coincidence or not, Ryan,
the guess who was in power in mid twenty seventeen,
So it's a bit of a tale of the tape.
Really like farmer confidence, it's taken a bit of a battering.
Obviously COVID happened during labor six year in power, but
it'll be fair to say that they didn't really have
the back of farmers. So this is the latest Rabobank

(00:36):
rural confidence survey, best since mid twenty seventeen. Reasons for
optimism higher commodity prices and they've even got higher. Ryan,
By the way, since this survey has been completed, we've
had that ten dollars announcement from Fonterra and obviously falling
interest rates, so the other big one, but they're still

(00:57):
the major concern in terms of farmer confidence. Would be
the same for anyone in business or owning a house.
I guess is rising input costs, No surprise. When it
came to a differing farming sectors, it was the dairy
farmers who were the most confident. And why wouldn't you
be with ten dollars milk price? Sheep farmers, the red

(01:18):
meat farmers are more confident because they're coming off a
real low water culture perhaps other than key we fruit
just sort of treading water at the moment. And the
other positive to come out of this unless you're in
the market to buy a farm. Of courses that farmers
are expecting land values to rise in the coming year.
And I bet that's is pretty much what a lot

(01:39):
of homeowners are thinking as well.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, a bit of confidence there. Farmers not so happy
with their banks though.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
No, what did Nikola Willis call it a cozy pillow fight? Yeah,
so this is Federated farmers who are on the warpath.
And my understanding, Ryan, and you heard it first on
your High Rating show, there is some announcement from Federated
Farmers on this one tomorrow. They've come out today. They've
surveyed more than six hundred farmers. Only fifty three percent

(02:09):
of respondents are currently satisfied with their banking relationship. That's
a huge drop from the eighty percent in twenty seventeen.
Sheer milkers are the most concerned. They've got more at
risk and they've got less security. Thirty five percent of
them are feeling undue pressure from their bank. Alarmingly, almost

(02:30):
a quarter of farmers feel their bank doesn't allow them
to structure their debt efficiently, ie making them use overdraft
facilities at very high in punitive rates to farm capital projects.
And Richard McIntyre from Federated Farmers is saying this doesn't
just drive up interest rates for farmers and costs for farmers,

(02:51):
it also unjustifiably drives up the profit for the banks. Now,
it's not all bad news. If you're banking with Rabobank,
well you're probably doing okay, well better than the average bear.
Because I've got twenty three percent of the rural market.
They've slowly climbed. They do nothing else but finance rural
and farming. Are Their satisfaction rates are at seventy point

(03:14):
one percent and that's well ahead of the four the
Gussie banks.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Well that says at all, doesn't it. Jamie, Thank you
very much for that. Jamie McKay hosted the Country with.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
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