Listen: Positive outlook for farming in 2018, but one warning

Favourable market conditions are set to underpin a second consecutive year of broad based profitability in New Zealand agriculture in 2018 according to Rabobank's newly released industry report.

Rabobank's Country Banking GM Hayley Gourley spoke to The Country about the bank's latest and "unusual" Agribusiness Outlook Report for 2018.

Gourley says the reason the report is so singular is that it shows a second consecutive profitable year for most New Zealand producers, across an unusually broad base of subsectors.

Although this is good news Hayley has a warning against capitalising into land values.

"Typically what happens when New Zealand agriculture has a good run is we tend to see land price inflation, we tend to see that optimism spill over into the land market and while that can be useful...it means that some other parts of the value chain either don't receive the investment or we're not actually investing as an industry where the longer term returns will be."

Also in today's interview - Hayley looks at Rabobank's outlook for the Kiwi dollar, Fonterra's issues with Beingmate and how some Government policies are having a major effect on farming.