Why farmers talk more about the All Blacks than farm succession

Saturday, 28 March 2026

Central Districts Field Days saw farming generations enjoying a big day out together.

ANALYSIS: Why do so many farmers fail to talk about farm succession and the transferring of wealth to the next generation?

The answer, according to lawyer Mark Tavendale from Tavendale + Partners, is simple: “Because it’s really hard.”

Not only could it be hard for families where communication between generations wasn’t the best, but in farming, the tyranny of the “now” often took precedence over how the wealth built up through hard graft and calculated risk-taking is transferred to the next generation.

“They’re struggling with all the things that we’re hearing about on a day-to-day basis with their farming,” said Tavendale, speaking at Stuff Events Central District Field Days earlier this month in Fielding.

“Often succession isn’t the thing that you wake up in the morning thinking about,” he said.

Instead, topics like “What’s my fertilizer bill?” or “What’s my diesel going to be next week?” were topmost.

But more than that, Tavendale said: “It’s a difficult thing to discuss.”

There’s hard research to back up his words.

Changing of the guard

Rabobank’s Changing of the Guard white paper from last year reported what many farmers will have seen in their communities and networks.

The farmer population has aged. Farming enterprises have become larger and more complex. Farm values are high. And in many families, succession planning remains an unspoken issue.

Rabobank surveyed 450 large, small, and medium businesses, and it found that just a third had a fully developed, documented succession plan.

Hayden Trotter from Allan McNeil says there’s a lot of emotions around farm succession planning. On his left is Mark Tavendale, managing partner at Tavendale + Partners. On his right is Aidan Gent, ASB’’s general manager rural.

A further 17% had discussed succession.

The other half had not even talked about it.

At Central District Field Days Tavendale discussed succession planning and intergenerational wealth transfer with Hayden Trotter, chartered accountant from AllanMcNeill in Fielding, and Aiden Gent, ASB’s general manager rural, in a panel session for farmers.

Mastering the fear

Trotter often had discussions with farmer-clients about how farming wealth was to pass to the next generation.

“There's a lot of fear in and around starting those conversations; the fear of getting it wrong, the fear of having emotion in the room. It can be quite charged,” he said.

“I’ll just pick on mum and dad here. They do get older, and they just want everyone to get on. They don’t actually want anyone to fall out, so they don’t have those conversations for fear of disruption,” he said.

Getting a nudge from an accountant, or lawyer, was helpful in overcoming the excuses people give themselves for not starting.

“You can easily defer that tough decision for another day when you are in a slightly better frame of mind, or when those stars align,” he said.

But, frankly, he said, the stars never do “align”, and farm-owners just needed to grasp the mettle and get on with it.

“It’s around leadership,” Trotter said. “I think there’s a fundamental lack of leadership in all aspects of life. Leadership is hard. Sometimes you’re not popular. But you’ve got to do the right thing for the greater good for the long term.”

Capacity helps. Rabobank found farm businesses with higher incomes were more likely to have developed and documented succession plans.

Central District Field Days is organised by Stuff Events. It brings together thousands of farming families.

Breaking the silence on succession

Gent wanted to see succession become a normal thing for farmers to chat about round barbecues, at networking events, and down the pub.

“Around a kitchen table, there are far more conversations on who the All Blacks coach should be than how succession should play through,” he said.

“One of those has got very little bearing on your life; the other one's got a significant bearing on your prosperity and your family's prosperity.”

He dismissed the idea of there being a “right answer” for succession planning.

Every succession plan, every wealth transfer plan, looked different.

“I think the framing shift needs to go to success being having the conversation rather than getting to an outcome,” Gent said.

“I think we're too rushed to get to an outcome. People are therefore scared to put all the cards on the table. If we could actually celebrate the conversation being had, the rest of it would flow far more naturally.”

Who’s best at talking about succession?

Gent said often the best people at talking about succession were those from families with “open” communication styles, an “appetite to plan”, and the necessary pinch of emotional courage.

“They aren't fearful of the emotion that might come out,” Gent said.

Certain mindsets made some people more likely to do the planning, and pay for legal and accounting advice.

Tavendale spoke about the value of a “growth mindset”.

“It is a mindset, and it’s a positive mindset. And I think families that are doing it well have that mindset,” he said.

Trotter reminded farmers that while getting advice came with a price tag, not paying for good advice also came with a price: “Emotional resentment, bitterness that lingers, separation of families”.

Gent said: “I think if a family can continue to have Christmas together, you've got the thing right. And often what we see break down is not the financials of the business model in terms of the succession; it's actually the family dynamic.

“You talk to a lot of older farmers who have gone through it and got it wrong, and a lot of them would have said: ‘I’d sell the farm to the neighbour just so my kids could keep having Christmas together’.”

Fair does not necessarily mean equal

What does “fair” look like in farm succession?

A good education as an engineer and help to buy a first home could be an entirely “fair” outcome for one of the children of a two-child farming family, if the other ended up taking on the debt, and work, to buy out mum and dad out of the farm.

And, of course, the mathematics have to add up.

“You’ve got to be realistic about what’s feasible and how much debt a farm can actually sustain,” he said.

Succession often saw mum and dad move move off the land, and into town. That meant clearing enough money for them to a house, a new car, leaving them enough money to live decently on.

A large farming and profitable enterprise could sustain the funding necessary for that, as well as paying some money to the siblings who are not going to carry the torch on the farm.

But not all inter-generational farms were profitable enough to sustain that.

Trotter said: “A farm is not like a piece of cake. You can’t just cut a slice off, and everyone gets some, and that’s equal.”

For the sibling who stays on the farm, there needed to be an economic outcome for them, recognising they are only caretakers, and don’t actually get to sell it, and convert it to cash, Trotter said.

Family baggage

Lawyer Mark Tavendale talks with reporter Rob Stock.

Farm owners’ past experiences of succession often influenced their ideas, and willingness to get stuck into it.

“We had an example the other day of a young couple buying their first farm, which is great to see,” said Trotter.

They had had such a horrible succession experience they were keen to avoid their children going through the same trauma they experienced.

“They were reasonably burnt from an emotional perspective,” Trotter said. “They’re already talking about the ownership structure of their farming asset… for how they want their two kids to be thinking about that asset in 35 years’ time.”

“That’s probably the earliest I’ve ever seen that conversation start. But I guarantee come 55, 60, 65, that family unit is going to be in a very, very strong space,” he said.

When succession promises were made but not carried through with, bitterness was the result, Tavendale said.

“One of the things I think is really unfair, and you do see it, is when you are given indications and promises as a 30-year-old and you end up being 50 and it doesn't happen. You don't get your 20 years back,” he said.

The three experts urged people to take their time with succession discussions and planning, and think of it as a multi-year process.

Everyone needed to be heard. Ideas needed time to percolate so everyone had time to consider the consequences of what they’re doing.

Financing the generational wealth transfer

Gent said often financing wealth transfer was the easiest part of the whole conversation.

“If every other part of the conversation goes well, it’s a bit of an easy piece from a banking perspective,” Gent said.

“I’d say, finger in the air, probably 10% of the conversations we have on succession are actually on the maths of succession. Most of it is actually on the process, and all the different considerations around how you might think about that.”

But, financing was hard, if farms, or businesses weren’t profitable.

“If you've got two children, and high debt, you've actually got three children. The third child is the debt,” Trotter said.

And, sometimes, at the end of the day, despite the romance of the idea of generation after generation staying on the land, the best wealth transfer came from selling up, Tavendale said.

Some farmers have little choice.

Rabobank reported that roughly four in 10 farmers didn’t have anyone in the next generation to take over.

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