The growth of New Zealand's economy and the ability to offer more and better jobs comes from growing businesses, not halting agriculture, Federated Farmers national president Bruce Wills says.
In his address to the organisation's national conference yesterday, Mr Wills looked ahead to 2020 and predicted that by June that year, primary industry exports would well exceed $40 billion.
That would be a 25% increase over the next eight years but well below the almost 73% increase over the past eight years.
The combination of an indebted local market, as well as troubled European and American markets, would prove strong headwinds, but Asia would support much of the new growth, Mr Wills said.
There would also be some "slow down" due to environmental constraints but he hoped not too much.
Having recently returned from overseas, he got the impression that while the rest of the world was worrying how to feed a growing population, some in New Zealand were talking of capping production.
"While the rest of the world seems focused on growing their economies, some here talk of winding back the clock."
New Zealand could not afford to lose another 53,000 people to Australia next year in a search for better jobs.
"We need to grasp new opportunities here," he said.
Agriculture has taken last place across all indexes in the latest National Bank business outlook. The fact that agriculture remained "the weakest link on just about every metric" was no real surprise given the highs it was coming off in terms of production and price, BNZ economist Craig Ebert said.
But every sector came down compared to the previous month's survey, especially manufacturing.
A net 13% expected business conditions to improve over the year ahead, down from a net 27% last month.
The good news was that sentiment was still positive and it was natural to feel a little more cautious heading into winter.
The bad news was that stripping out the mild seasonal pattern showed confidence was still down and had been declining since March, National Bank chief economist Cameron Bagrie said.
Firms remained optimistic regarding their own prospects, with a net 21% expecting an improvement over the year ahead. But that was "putting a very positive spin on it". It was down 14 points on the previous month, he said.
The ASB New Zealand commodity price index held relatively steady last week, ending just 0.3% lower.
Dairy prices were slightly lower but meat and forestry prices climbed in US dollar terms.
Silver Fern Farms' latest market update said beef markets globally continued to remain soft.
Chilled lamb demand was firm as New Zealand production volumes continued to decline.
Demand for frozen lamb remained slow.
Although demand remained positive for frozen venison, there was increasing resistance to chilled pricing for the forthcoming game season.