Influence of demographic factors on the use of farm management tools by New Zealand farmers

Knowledge of the use of farm management tools by New Zealand farmers is important to enable the identification of areas where better uptake of tools can result in improvements in farm profitability. In October 2012, a survey was sent to all New Zealand sheep farmers asking them to indicate which farm management tools they had used in the previous 3 years. A total of 962 usable survey responses were returned which represented 7.8% of sheep farmers. The results showed that a number of the management tools were used by a small percentage of farmers thus indicating that improvements in farm productivity could be achieved by increasing their use. In addition, use of these management tools was associated with a number of demographic factors including farm size, farmer age and highest education level. This new knowledge indicates that the delivery of technology transfer should be tailored to farmers based on at least these socioeconomic factors.