Farming 'needs bright kids'

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Send your dumb kid to law school and put your bright kid into agriculture, not the other way around.

That was the blunt message from Federated Farmers chief executive Conor English, who expressed his concern about the future of agriculture in New Zealand during an industry update in Gore last week.

"Running a farming business in New Zealand is complex and we need intelligent people to do it,'' Mr English said.

He told about 50 farmers at the meeting that farm succession was the sleeping giant of agriculture.

Mr English posed the question "who will take over the farm?'' and urged farmers not to send their bright kid to law school, as  was the tradition, but to put them into agriculture.

The youngest of 12 siblings, Mr English said he was both a country boy and a city kid.

He grew up on a 7000-stock-unit property at Dipton but has spent the past 18 years in Wellington, and been Federated Farmers chief executive for more than a year.

Mr English and his wife, Jo Coughlan, a Wellington city councillor, have six children, but none of them was thinking about a career in agriculture, he said.

"How do we get more young ones into agriculture?

"That's the real challenge going forward,'' he said.

Water quality was one of the biggest issues dividing rural and urban New Zealand and was often the topic of discussion at dinner parties he attended, Mr English said.

"The ownership, allocation, management and storage of water are massive issues we need to address.''

Federated Farmers would put a lot of resources into water during the next few years and had recently employed its third staff member with a PhD in water management,  he said.

"It's irresponsible not to have water storage, especially when 96 per cent of the water that falls in Canterbury goes out to sea.''