Agricultural and horticultural statistics

MPI partners with Stats NZ and works with other industry organisations to collect and report agricultural and horticultural statistics. Browse available statistics by industry.

Stats NZ tools

Historic data is kept on Stats NZ's website, including free web tools that allow you to examine data sets in different ways:

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Agricultural production statistics

The Agricultural Production Statistics programme is fully-funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and administered by Stats NZ. It provides information about:

  • animal farming, including sheep, beef and dairy cattle, and deer
  • crop growing, including grain and seed crops, fruit and vegetables, wine grapes and nursery plants
  • forestry and farm practices, including irrigation and fertiliser use.

The programme supports a range of tier 1 statistics – essential statistics to understand how well New Zealand is performing and to inform critical decisions.

It involves a full census of all farmers and foresters every 5 years, with sample surveys in intervening years. The last census was in 2017.

Provisional results are released by Stats NZ in mid-December each year and the final results are released in mid-May the following year.

Review of APS programme

MPI and Stats NZ, in consultation with internal and external stakeholders, are currently reviewing the APS programme.

Gaining an accurate picture of agricultural production in New Zealand, is essential for decision-making by government agencies and industry groups.

We need to invest in redeveloping agricultural production and land use statistics so that the programme continues to meet current and future user needs.

The review project will run over 2018 and 2019, starting with an evaluation of user needs. 

If you would like to comment on this project, email MPI at APSReview@mpi.govt.nz

Livestock slaughter statistics

Monthly livestock slaughter statistics for sheep, cattle, goats, horses and pigs at a national level.

Data is updated on the 25th of every month or the next working day. There is a 1-month lag between the data being processed and when it is published online, and the statistics are provisional for 3 months. 

As of 1 August 2016, cattle slaughter numbers and weights are disaggregated according to whether they come from dairy farms or beef farms. This results from the change in the TB levy system. 

No horses have been slaughtered for human consumption since October 2016.

Live animal exports

Download spreadsheets with annual statistics for the export of germplasm and live animals from 2011 to 2020.

An infographic showing exports of live animals in 2016 [PDF, 411 KB]

Horticultural statistics

Horticulture New Zealand and Plant & Food Research produce an annual publication with facts and statistics about horticultural production and exports.

MPI last ran the full Horticulture, Arable and Apiculture Farm Monitoring Programme in 2012. It has since been replaced with a combination of co-funded partnerships with sector bodies and direct support by MPI.

Pipfruit

Viticulture

Kiwifruit

  • MPI has a partnership with the kiwifruit sector to develop a revised kiwifruit monitoring programme. Monitoring reports will be published when they are available.

Arable

  • MPI has a contract for access to anonymised and aggregated data from the Foundation for Arable Research for analysis within the Ministry, as required. There are no published reports.

Apiculture

Horticulture, Arable and Apiculture Monitoring – 2012

Download information and datasets from MPI's 2012 horticulture, arable and apiculture monitoring programme.

Pastoral monitoring

MPI last ran the Farm Monitoring Programme in 2012 and it has since been replaced by partnerships with Beef+LambNZ and DairyNZ. MPI has a contract to access anonymised data for analysis within the Ministry, as required.

MPI pastoral monitoring – 2012

Download information and datasets from MPI's 2012 pastoral monitoring.

Dairy
Deer
Sheep and beef

Find out more

If you have questions about the data on this page, email stats_info@mpi.govt.nz

MPI statistics and links

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