Survey shows positive perception of New Zealanders to farmers

A public perception survey of livestock industries and its welfare practices paints a positive picture of how the country sees its farmers. And the perception has changed for the good more than any other industry in New Zealand in the past three years, the Research First survey shows. “The sheep and beef and dairy sub-sectors saw a significant increase in positive perception and no significant change to negative perception,” Research First’s Liz Morley said. The results are from an online survey of 380 New Zealanders. The research included other industries, among them healthcare, tourism, construction and retail. “We’re now seeing farmers and growers with the highest proportion trending to the positive.” Digging deeper into the data shows even more positive results for farmers. Three quarters of people trust farmers to properly care for their animals and three quarters of people rated the welfare of animals in the dairy and sheep and beef sub-sectors “good” or “very good”. Only ...