The latest Federated Farmers confidence survey shows farmers are a little more optimistic about the state of the economy, and it also reveals nearly half of all surveyed farmers intend to spend less in the coming year, than they did the year before.

While farmer confidence in the general economy had increased across all sectors, in July’s survey still only 16 percent of surveyed farmers felt the New Zealand economy would improve in the next 12 months.

But that was up from barely five percent in January’s survey.

The majority of farmers believe the economy will remain the same.

However, farmers were vastly more confident when it came to their own operation’s profitability – with 45.8 percent saying they are expecting improvements in the next year.

45.6 percent of farmers also said they would be spending less in the coming year.

Federated Farmers president Bruce Wills says this is a sign farmers are focused on paying down debt, and expects it is a trend that will continue for at least the next six months.

"Obviously it’s all a matter of priorities, and that extra money that is being earnt by the current high commodity prices, perhaps in the past, has traditionally flown through to the wider community.

"But we’re not seeing that in a big sense at this stage because of the point you’ve raised – the focus on debt reduction. We see that as important."

Mr Wills says the global financial meltdown taught many farmers a hard lesson - that they were carrying too much debt, and now they are focused on bringing it down. 

The results of the confidence survey are based upon the 877 responses Federated Farmers received from farmers throughout the country.