As agribusiness operating models evolve, farming families are being challenged to rethink succession — not just as the transfer of assets, but as a question of leadership, capability and long-term resilience.
Succession is no longer just about inheritance
Across New Zealand agribusiness, succession is changing from a simple transfer of land, assets and knowledge to a broader question of leadership, capability and long-term resilience. Farming families are being asked to look beyond inheritance and consider who is best placed to lead the business into the future. This reflects wider pressures on traditional operating models. Value is increasingly created through technology, market connectivity and system resilience, not land alone. KPMG’s Agribusiness Agenda 2026 highlights this shift and the growing balance between maintaining the status quo and making the changes needed to support future succession, governance and investment decisions.
Why the traditional model is under pressure
For generations, New Zealand’s agribusiness sector has been grounded in continuity, through intergenerational knowledge, stewardship of land and conservative capital management. These foundations have served farming families well. However, the operating environment is becoming more complex and less predictable.
The Agribusiness Agenda shares insights from sector leaders about how value is increasingly being created beyond the farm gate. Technology, data, market access and system resilience are now central to performance, alongside land and physical assets. At the same time, external factors are placing pressure on traditional operating models.
As a result, succession can no longer be viewed solely as the orderly transfer of assets. Approaches that prioritised inheritance and tenure are being reshaped by a landscape that demands adaptability, strategic thinking and a broader range of leadership capabilities.
The real question: who leads next?
For family agribusinesses, this shift brings the succession conversation into sharper focus. Increasingly, the question is not simply who will inherit the farm, but who is best placed to lead the farming business into the future.
Future leaders are expected to be strategically focused, informed by data and insight, commercially capable and globally aware. This raises difficult but necessary questions for farming families:
- Do potential successors have the capability required for the next phase of the farming business?
- Are leadership roles being defined by capability, or by expectation?
- Is the farming business structured to support modern leadership demands?
These conversations can be challenging, particularly where family relationships, legacy and identity are closely tied to the farm. However, avoiding them can increase risk over time, especially as the pace of change accelerates.
Governance is becoming a differentiator
As leadership expectations evolve, governance is emerging as an important differentiator for family agribusinesses. Many of the challenges we’ve heard from the sector, as highlighted in the Agribusiness Agenda are, at their core, governance issues rather than operational ones.
Historically, decision-making in family farming businesses has often been informal and relationship-based. While effective in stable environments, this approach can become more difficult under conditions of complexity and rapid change.
As farms become more reliant on data, digital systems and external providers, questions of control and influence begin to shift. In some cases, critical knowledge now sits within systems rather than individuals, or outside the farming business entirely. This can influence how decisions are made and where control sits, particularly when the person who understands the system holds more practical control than the person who owns the asset.
This reinforces the need for a more structured approach to governance. One that helps families to move beyond reactive decision-making and build resilience into their long-term strategy.
What future challenges may look like
Strong governance can help organisations navigate future key challenges identified by the Agribusiness Agenda as likely disruptors for the sector. These are likely to include:
- Rising complexity from geopolitical disruption, changing consumer demand, market diversity, environmental challenges and technology.
- Evolving workforce and capability constraints within the farming business and across the value chain.
- Barriers to technology adoption, including data quality and integration challenges.
- Pressure to act quickly, requiring faster decision-making and greater governance clarity.
- Balancing capital allocation between reinvestment, innovation and distribution.
- Building resilient infrastructure and systems.
Building resilience beyond the current generation
New Zealand’s agribusiness sector remains well positioned globally, supported by trust, quality and a strong culture of innovation. However, resilience can no longer be assumed. As the pace of change accelerates, it must be built deliberately.
For farming families, this means thinking beyond the current generation: investing in capability as well as assets, stress-testing strategies against disruption, and reducing reliance on any single individual. When approached as a leadership and governance challenge rather than a transactional one, succession can become a powerful lever for long-term resilience and opportunity.
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KPMG is a professional services firm with global reach, and deep expertise in audit and assurance, tax and advisory and in the family business sector.
© 2026 KPMG, a New Zealand partnership and a member firm of the KPMG global organisation of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International Limited, a private English company limited by guarantee. All rights reserved.
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