Agribusiness: Dairy makes a positive impression on the country

DairyNZ's latest Public Perceptions of Dairy survey revealed 66 per cent of respondents backed the dairy industry.

Here's the good news. New Zealanders' impression of the dairy industry is positive, and the public perception is ahead of forestry, oil and gas, and financial services by some margin.

DairyNZ's latest Public Perceptions of Dairy survey revealed 66 per cent of respondents backed the dairy industry and only 14 per cent said their overall impressions were negative.

Project manager Andrew Fraser says the survey is an important tool to tell the industry's story. For dairy to be successful, it really needs good people. If you're a talented person, you've got choices.

"We want the dairy industry to be an attractive choice. If the dairy industry has an image of being slow, plainly agricultural and a drag on the environment, then it's not going to be very appealing and sexy for those people. If that's how people are viewing it, then we need to know that so we can address it."

The survey's aim is to ensure the industry is continually aware of how it is viewed by the public, as well as what issues they consider to be important surrounding dairy farming.

In the past, research was conducted using traditional focus groups of eight to 10 people. This year Dairy NZ used a different approach, inviting participants join an online discussion panel akin to a message board, answering questions set by the moderators, as well as engaging with one another.

The format proved a more honest conversation than the previous method. "In a physical focus group, you get all sorts of dynamics influencing the results and you only get them for an hour, so easing that bias is difficult," says Fraser.

"We hosted the online discussion panels for a week. Not only do you get discussion generated by the questions but discussion in response to conversation going on among themselves. The anonymity helps remove some of the biases."

Fraser says one of the more interesting outputs in this year's research is that people really value the idea of farmers being genuine and relatable.

"That was something we'd never really thought about before.

"What this tells us is that if we can get farmers telling their own stories to the public rather than through a corporate mouthpiece," he says.

If we can get farmers telling their own stories to the public rather than through a corporate mouthpiece, this will get a higher degree of resonance with everyday New Zealanders.

"This will get a higher degree of resonance with everyday New Zealanders."

Demystifying public perceptions isn't just the end. Thanks to dairy's unique position within New Zealand's cultural identity, it's important to keep farmers connected with the general public.

"What we find is a lot of farmers are really sensitised to headlines that are down on dairying," explains Fraser. "But what we found, particularly from our qualitative online panels, is that the pubic don't pay as much attention to all that, as you'd think."

Fraser says the positive results in the latest survey make it easier to convince dairy operators that the key to the hearts of everyday New Zealand is simply to walk-the-talk.

"Ultimately, we want New Zealanders, both the public and the farmer, to feel proud of dairying. That's what the research is about," he says.