"We're not going to fix this problem on our own. The problem with that rural retention is about rural New Zealand full stop. It's about roads and connectivity. It's about schools and it's about the wider opportunity of jobs," Dr Reid said.
"We are part of that bigger challenge about making sure rural New Zealand is an attractive place to live and work."
He described the challenges around retention, combined with issues around the ageing workforce as "the perfect storm".
The workforce study showed 45 per cent of Northland GPs surveyed were international medical graduates.
Dr Reid said no fulltime GPs in Kerikeri were New Zealand trained.
He suggested locally trained doctors hadn't applied because they had more awareness about the challenges rural New Zealand faced.
There were slight discrepancies at training level, with those working in hospitals receiving more support than trainee GPS in terms of study allowances and grants, Dr Reid said.
Dr Grahame Jelley, chair of the RNZCGP rural chapter, said the percentage of rural GPs intending to retire within the next 10 years had increased nationwide to 48 per cent in 2016.
Chief executive Helen Morgan-Banda said the college took on 182 new trainee GP registrars through its General Practice Education Programme last year. They would qualify in two to three years' time.
It also had 180 complete their training and achieve fellowship of the RNZCGP while working as GPs.
This year it hoped to take even more trainee GPs into its education programme.
"However, to keep increasing the number of GP trainees we need our funding to increase. We also need to find ways to train more GPs through new training models," she said.
With the length of time to train a GP a minimum 11 years, the training pipeline is quite long, she said.
New Zealand didn't have enough GPs because fewer were trained in the early 1990s.