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Dairy farmers' borrowing binge coming home to roost
New Zealand's dairy debt has trebled to $34.5 billion in the past 10 years as farmers go on a borrowing binge.
In 2003, the figure sat at $11.3b, Reserve Bank records show. After the first of the big milk payouts – $7.59 a kilogram of milk solids in 2008 – the industry's debt ballooned to $28b by 2009 from $18b two years earlier, on the back of a land-buying spree.
Having to borrow back hundreds of thousands of dollars paid off their loan in the last 2½ years is leaving a Hawera couple bitterly disappointed.
Amanda and Bryce Savage, 50:50 sharemilkers on a 134ha farm for Maori incorporation Parininihi ki Waitotara, raised a loan to buy their first farm, a 74ha property near Stratford, in 2013.
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