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Jamie Mackay: The Country host on farmer confidence reaching highest level since 2017 · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZEDB. Follow this
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  Speaker 1: and our wide range of podcast now on iHeartRadio. Joining
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  Speaker 1: us is Jamie mckaye, host of the Country Jamie. Good
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  Speaker 1: evening to you, Hie to chat. Great to have you on.
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  Speaker 1: And farmers are feeling good. Confidence is up, in fact,
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  Speaker 1: highest since mid twenty seventeen.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't know whether it's a coincidence or not, Ryan,
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  Speaker 2: but guess who was in power and mid twenty seventeen,
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  Speaker 2: So it's a bit of a tale of the tape
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  Speaker 2: really like farmer confidence, it's taken a bit of a battering.
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  Speaker 2: Obviously COVID happened during labour six year in power, but
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  Speaker 2: it'll be fair to say that they didn't really have
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  Speaker 2: the back of farmers. So this is the latest Rabobank
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  Speaker 2: rural confidence survey, best since mid twenty seventeen. Reasons for
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  Speaker 2: optimism higher commodity prices and they've even got higher, Ryan,
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  Speaker 2: By the way, since this survey has been completed, we've
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  Speaker 2: had that ten dollars announcement from Fonterra and obviously falling
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  Speaker 2: interest rates, so the other big one. But they're still
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  Speaker 2: the major concern in terms of farmer confidence and would
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  Speaker 2: be the same for anyone in business or owning a house.
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  Speaker 2: I guess is rising input costs. No surprise. When it
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  Speaker 2: came to a differing farming sectors, it was the dairy
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  Speaker 2: farmers who were the most confident. And why wouldn't you
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  Speaker 2: be with ten dollars milk price? Sheep farmers, the red
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  Speaker 2: meat farmers are more confident because they're coming off a
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  Speaker 2: real low water culture perhaps other than kiwi fruit, just
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  Speaker 2: sort of treading water at the moment. And the other
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  Speaker 2: positive to come out of this, unless you're in the
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  Speaker 2: market to buy a farm, of course, is that farmers
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  Speaker 2: are expecting land values to rise in the coming year.
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  Speaker 2: And I bet that is pretty much what a lot
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  Speaker 2: of homeowners are thinking as well.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, a bit of confidence there. Farmers not so happy
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  Speaker 1: with their banks though.
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  Speaker 2: No, what did Nikola Willis call it a cozy pillow fight? Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: so this is Federated farmers who are on the warpath.
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  Speaker 2: And my understanding, Ryan, and you heard it first on
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  Speaker 2: your Higher Rating show, there is some big announcement from
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  Speaker 2: Federated Farmers on this one tomorrow. They've come out today.
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  Speaker 2: They've surveyed more than six hundred farmers. Only fifty three
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  Speaker 2: percent of respondents are currently satisfied with their banking relationship.
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  Speaker 2: That's a huge drop from the eighty percent in twenty seventeen.
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  Speaker 2: Sheer milkers are the most concerns. They've got more at
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  Speaker 2: risk and they've got less security. Thirty five percent of
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  Speaker 2: them are feeling undue pressure from their bank. Alarmingly, almost
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  Speaker 2: a quarter of farmers feel their bank doesn't allow them
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  Speaker 2: to structure their death efficiently, ie making them use overdraft
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  Speaker 2: facilities at very high in punitive rates to farm capital projects.
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  Speaker 2: And Richard McIntyre from Federated Farmers is saying this doesn't
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  Speaker 2: just drive up interest rates for farmers and costs for farmers,
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  Speaker 2: it also unjustifiably drives up the profit for the banks. Now,
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  Speaker 2: it's not all bad news. If you're banking with Rabobank, well,
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  Speaker 2: you're probably doing okay or better than the average bear.
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  Speaker 2: Because I've got twenty three percent of the rural market.
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  Speaker 2: They've slowly climbed. They do nothing else but finance rural
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  Speaker 2: and farming. Their satisfaction rates are at seventy point one percent,
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  Speaker 2: and that's well ahead of the four Burgossi banks.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that says at all, doesn't it, Jamie, Thank you
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  Speaker 1: very much for that. Jamie McKay hosted the Country with Us.
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