What Makes Good Farmers Good?

NEWS FROM the FaculTy of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Lincoln University

What Makes Good Farmers Good?

In ground-breaking research, Dr Peter Nuthall of Lincoln University has uncovered the basic factors behind high performing farmers’ managerial ability.

“Although previous research had provided clues, these ideas were first put to the test in a recent survey of over 700 New Zealand farmers,” said Dr Nuthall.

“It is fascinating to realise that while there were some inherent genetic and family background influences that could not be changed, there is enormous potential to improve a farmer’s ability with support, hard work and learning from past experience,” said Dr Nuthall.

From these results, Dr Nuthall concluded that improvement in managerial ability is an extremely efficient way of improving the nation’s productivity.

“Increasing output by, say, 5% is largely all profit as the only change is ability, not costly purchased input increases. Every farmer should work at it,” he said.

“Not surprisingly, a farmer who enjoys ‘farming as a way of life’ tends to have a high ability, as do farmers who strive to eliminate risk. But farmers who have ‘profit maximisation’ as an objective tend to have lower ability. Perhaps this results from finding it difficult to achieve.”

“Specifically, the results showed that intelligence is not as important as might be imagined with only about 8% of managerial ability is due to intelligence. “

“Experience, at the other end, contributes a whopping 67% to ability,” said Dr Nuthall.

“These results reinforce how successful primary production requires practical application skills, but intellectual capacity is still critical because without it the lessons from experience just aren’t registered.”

The survey showed that two other important contributors are personality and parental influence. Management style, the expression of personality in a management setting, explains 16% of ability. The remaining 9% is due to lessons from parents.

Dr Nuthall said many attributes contribute to the overall experience factor, but the most important is the number of years experience off the home farm closely followed by the number of generations the farmer’s forebears have been farming.

“In itself this does not confer ability but it can instil the lessons learnt from earlier mistakes,” he said.

“Intuition comes from intelligent use of experience. It is a learnt attribute, and provides immediate and constant decision guidance frequently used by farmers acting in ‘automatic mode’.”

Mulling over experiences with other farmers and taking part in family discussions when young were also important factors, particularly if farmers had been encouraged to use their imagination, observation and people skills from an early age.

Personality depends on early experiences combined with inherited genes. A strongly inherited trait is anxiety. Good managers do not tend to exhibit anxiety.

“The good news is that farmers can learn to abate anxiety and consequently improve their ability,” said Dr Nuthall.

“A management style that exhibits conscientiousness, benigness, and a willingness to consult with others are all beneficial traits as well as an inquisitive mind.”

Mentor groups can play a major part in the improvement process.

ENDS

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