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:
For individuals
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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.
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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 2022.
Provisional results are released by Stats NZ in mid-December each year and the final results are released in mid-May the following year.
Agriculural Production Statistics surveys and censuses – Stats 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.
- Live animal and germplasm export statistics 2020 [XLSX, 1.3 MB]
- Live animal and germplasm export statistics 2019 [XLSX, 1.3 MB]
- Live animal and germplasm export statistics 2018 [XLSX, 1.3 MB]
- Live animal and germplasm export statistics 2017 [XLS, 2.1 MB]
- Live animal and germplasm export statistics 2016 [XLSX, 1.2 MB]
- Live animal and germplasm export statistics 2015 [XLS, 2.1 MB]
- Live animal and germplasm export statistics 2014 [XLS, 2.2 MB]
- Live animal and germplasm export statistics 2013 [XLS, 2.1 MB]
- Live animal and germplasm export statistics 2012 [XLS, 1.4 MB]
- Live animal and germplasm export statistics 2011 [XLS, 1.4 MB]
An infographic showing exports of live animals in 2016 [PDF, 411 KB]
Horticultural statistics
Fresh facts
United Fresh New Zealand Inc. produces an annual publication with facts and statistics about horticultural production and exports.
Farm monitoring programme
The MPI farm monitoring programme provides data and reports on farm-level production, expenditure, and profit trends of individual primary industry sectors.
Pastoral farm data
Data and information on the annual production and financial performance of sheep and beef cattle farms, and dairy farms are reported by our industry partners.
Find out more
If you have questions about the data on this page, email stats_info@mpi.govt.nz
