When the Farm Gates Opened: The Impact of Rogernomics on Rural New Zealand

The economic reforms launched by the 1984 David Lange–led Labour government changed New Zealand forever. Agriculture bore the brunt of those changes and Rogernomics, the name by which the era came to be known, became an historical reference point for the primary sector: a defining and pivotal moment when financial subsidies abruptly ended and farming learned to live without government influence, interference or protection. The changes were more sweeping and wide ranging than anything farmer...