Average age of farmers

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34042, 5 January 1976, Page 7

Average age of farmers

(From our Wellington reporter)

The average age of t New Zealand’s sheep- 1 farmers is not 57, as ) often asserted, but 45. ( according to a survey of ; them by Lincoln College recently. ] The college’s research ! fellow in agricultural policy, ' (Mr J. G. Prydes, who made ; the survey, said that in a i response of 387 farmers i (about 70 per cent) in a 1 random national. postal 1 survey of 548, the ages of respondents reflected an un- i mistakable distribution pattern. i Mr Pryde found that the 1 I willingness to acquire more/ land diminished as a sheep- I farmer grew older. Whereas / three-quarters of the younger; farmers had been willing to I:

acquire more land, only 40 per cent of older farmers were prepared to, and of the total of 326 replies to this question, 61 per cent had said “Yes” and 39 per cent, “No.” Only 20 per cent of 324 respondents engaged the services of a technical adviser, and Mr Pryde said that, if the attitudes to increasing production were related to the use farmers made of professional advice, then it was not surprising that production was stagnating — although it was obviously not the only reason. Slightly more, 35 per cent, engaged the services of a financial adviser, although this figure would presumably have been higher if respondents had thought it included the services of an accountant for simple bookkeeping.