OVER 50 per cent of Australian farmers (57 per cent) say the biggest challenge they are facing is economic conditions (including inflation/prices), up eight per cent from a year ago, and up a large 22 per cent from 2022, a special Roy Morgan survey has found.
In a clear second place is government policy mentioned by 23 per cent of farmers, almost doubling from a year ago (up 11 per cent from 2023) and up by 17 per cent from 2022. Over the past two years, government policy has increased from equal fifth to a clear second place in the list of challenges.
Staffing issues, including finding sufficient labour for their farms, are the third most prominent issue and mentioned by 18 per cent of farmers as the biggest challenge they face, up five per cent from a year ago.
Filling out the top five issues were weather, mentioned by 16 per cent of farmers, business viability, also at 16 per cent, and somewhat surprisingly, climate change, mentioned by only seven per cent of farmers – down from a year ago.
The results in the special Roy Morgan Farmer AgTech Survey are based on 1001 in-depth interviews with Australian farmers conducted during April and May this year.
However, a majority of Australian farmers (60 per cent) expect their farming business will be ‘financially better off’ next year compared to 40 per cent who expect to be ‘worse off. Australian farmers are far more optimistic about the future compared to how they felt about a year ago.
Over two-thirds of farmers (70 per cent) say their farming business is ‘worse off financially’ than a year ago, compared to only 30 per cent who say they are ‘better off’.
Of concern, a majority of 58 per cent of farmers say the next 12 months is a ‘bad time to invest in growing the business’. An even larger majority of 66 per cent of farmers with an annual revenue of less than $100,000 say it is a ‘bad time to invest’.
In terms of the Australian economy, a clear majority of 69 per cent of farmers expect the economy to experience ‘bad times’ over both the next 12 months and the longer-term over the next five years.
Farmers from a range of farms participated in the survey – beef, cropping, sheep (meat), sheep (wool), horticulture, dairy and other farm types, small farms to those over 25,000 hectares, annual revenue from under $100,000 to over $5 million.