KEY POINTS:
Confidence among farmers continues to grow, according to the latest Rabobank/Nielsen Rural Confidence Survey.
The survey conducted last month shows the number of farmers expecting the rural economy to improve was relatively stable at 49 per cent, compared with 50 per cent in the previous survey, which are
taken bi-monthly.
But the number expecting things to get worse dropped significantly from 19 per cent to 10 per cent.
Rabobank general manager for rural New Zealand, Ben Russell, says the rising expectation of stability probably reflects relatively strong international agricultural commodity markets largely offsetting downward pressure from the high Kiwi dollar on export returns.
Expectations of improving economic conditions among sheep farmers grew to 40 per cent from 33 per cent, with those expecting a decline down sharply to 11 per cent compared with 28 per cent previously.
"Sheep farmers are likely to have been encouraged by the seasonal lift in farm gate prices over the past two months, while the New Zealand dollar has been relatively steady against the euro, which remains the most important currency for lamb exports alongside the British pound," Russell says.
"Processing companies have also been reporting positive international sentiment at the start of the chilled lamb selling season and following the major Anuga food trade fair in Germany in mid-October."
Beef farmers were not quite so chipper as their woolly counterparts, with a slight drop in those expecting improvement - 37 per cent compared with 39 per cent previously - although the number expecting things to get worse also fell considerably from 25 per cent to 16 per cent.
"Beef farm gate price had been steady, but then dropped due to currency pressures and easing US beef prices," Russell says.
"However, beef producers' confidence levels are likely to have been sustained by the positive demand for meat protein globally.
"Overall, we believe beef and sheep farmers are cautiously optimistic that the worst of the trading conditions are behind them, but they remain to be convinced that prices are likely to markedly improve next season."
Pessimism remained low among dairy farmers at a constant 4 per cent expecting worse conditions, although those predicting an improvement slipped back to 67 per cent from 77 per cent previously.
Fonterra is forecasting a record payout for this season of $6.40 kg of milk solids, compared to $4.46 last year.
"This may reflect the fact that dairy farmers think the current situation is as good as it gets, rather than any significant decline in sentiment," Russell says.
However, 93 per cent of dairy farmers expected income to rise next year.
"Dairy farmers are starting to receive the higher forecast payout as the milk production season and resulting cash flow is now well under way.
"International dairy commodity prices have also held at high levels, providing increased certainty to the $6.40 a kg milk solids expected this season."
Farmers of the cropping variety showed a big turnaround with expectations of increased income soaring from 36 per cent in February to 70 per cent in October.
"This improvement is likely to be the result of higher grain prices now being contracted in the local market, as imported grain costs have soared."
The latest study was the fourth in a row to show an improvement in the outlook of farmers.
BLOOMIN' LOVELY
As the Christmas decorations start going up around town - yes, no need to check, we are barely into November - Crop & Food Research has discovered how to get the bright red Opal lily to open early in time for the yuletide sales rush.
Crop & Food scientist Glenn Clark used new cultivars and changes in the length of the day and temperature to get the Opal lily to open its buds as early as October, compared with the traditional flowering of about three weeks in late January and early February.
"There are several new cultivars, some of them naturally flowering as early as November and now we have them producing flowers up to two months earlier," Clark says.
A series of cultivars will flower sequentially from October until March.
John Meyer from Opal lily grower Windmill Horticulture says he hopes to be shipping the flowers this Christmas, and having a flower available for six months of the year will build market recognition and demand.
"Particularly for export. It's a red flower in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere winter," Meyer says.
Windmill will supply cut flowers to Japan, US and Europe, bulbs to Chile and Holland and pot-plants locally and overseas.
"It's one that Crop & Food have actually worked on and done a lot of hybridisation and breeding to get the different colours and the different stem lengths ... to make it more of a commercial crop," Meyer says.
"They will be bringing probably one, maybe two, different colours or variations of colours to the market each year from now on."
Crop & Food's fashionable plants programme seeks to improve crop production, develop new propagation systems and breed new cultivars, as well as extend and change flowering.
"If they didn't do the research and the breeding and all that side of it, just us as growers can't afford that luxury of spending years developing up something."
YEAR OF THE POTATO
The humble potato is reaching heady heights with four new PhD research programmes and a year dedicated in its honour.
Horticulture New Zealand vegetable research manager Sonia Whiteman says next year has been named International Year of the Potato by the United Nations, promoting it as a crop that can help alleviate hunger and poverty.
"New Zealand's potato growers are 100 per cent behind this initiative so the timing of the announcement of our investment in the potato pathologists, physiologists and breeders of tomorrow is most appropriate," Whiteman says.
The PhD students will work on projects with potato scientists at at Crop & Food Research.
Studies will include an embedded - or should that be nicely bedded in - project with Crop & Food's breeding programme, another on potato water-use efficiency, molecular factors that control tuber expansion and the virulence of crop pathogen Rhizoctonia.
Crop & Food general manager for research Prue Williams says: "As scientists at Crop & Food Research, this is a great endorsement of the work we are doing and it ensures growers will have scientists available to support their industry well into the future."
Any PhDs going for best mash?
