29,077,000 sheep in 1935
The Long Farm Record
See how New Zealand farm animals, harvests, and land changed from 1935 to 2024.
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How to explore
New Zealand's agricultural surveys record farm animals, harvests, land, and farm holdings. The measures span 90 years, but the surveys do not include every measure in every year.
Start with sheep
Read the 1982 high point, then move the year control to see another exact count.
Choose another record
Follow farm area, holdings, animals, harvest weight, or planted area in its published unit.
Compare change
Set two records to 100 in their first shared year to compare their relative paths.
Scan the peaks
Select a row to see when that measure reached its highest published value.
- Year ended June
- A survey year that finishes on June 30 of the named year.
- Farm holding
- One or more blocks of land managed together as one farming operation.
- Indexed comparison
- Both records begin at 100 so their percentage change can be compared without treating their quantities as equal.
- Hectare
- An area of 10,000 square metres, about 2.47 acres.
- Tonne
- A metric unit equal to 1,000 kilograms.
- Recorded year
- A year present in the source; the project does not estimate values for missing years.
New Zealand farm records · 1935–2024
The long
farm record.
See how farm animals, harvests, and land changed across 90 years.
Agricultural surveys record what was on New Zealand farms in each year ended June. This page follows 14 long-running measures without filling the years that are missing.
01 · Choose a record
What do you want to follow?
Each choice keeps its published unit. The chart changes to that measure and its recorded years.
02 · Move through time
Sheep, year by year
Move the year control to read an exact published value. Dots are connected to show direction; a gap between records is not an estimate.
1982 · year ended June70,301,461 sheep
Source label: Total Sheep
70,301,461 sheep in 1982
From 1935 to 2024
Read every value for Sheep
| Year ended June | Published value |
|---|---|
| 1935 | 29,077,000 sheep |
| 1936 | 30,114,000 sheep |
| 1937 | 31,306,000 sheep |
| 1938 | 32,379,000 sheep |
| 1939 | 31,897,000 sheep |
| 1940 | 31,063,000 sheep |
| 1941 | 31,752,000 sheep |
| 1942 | 29,256,000 sheep |
| 1943 | 29,636,000 sheep |
| 1944 | 33,200,000 sheep |
| 1945 | 33,975,000 sheep |
| 1946 | 30,476,000 sheep |
| 1947 | 32,682,000 sheep |
| 1948 | 32,483,000 sheep |
| 1949 | 32,845,000 sheep |
| 1950 | 33,857,000 sheep |
| 1951 | 34,786,000 sheep |
| 1952 | 35,384,000 sheep |
| 1953 | 36,193,000 sheep |
| 1954 | 38,011,000 sheep |
| 1955 | 39,117,000 sheep |
| 1956 | 40,255,000 sheep |
| 1957 | 42,382,000 sheep |
| 1958 | 46,026,000 sheep |
| 1959 | 46,876,000 sheep |
| 1960 | 47,134,000 sheep |
| 1961 | 48,462,000 sheep |
| 1962 | 48,988,000 sheep |
| 1963 | 50,190,000 sheep |
| 1964 | 51,292,000 sheep |
| 1965 | 53,748,000 sheep |
| 1966 | 57,343,000 sheep |
| 1967 | 60,030,000 sheep |
| 1968 | 60,474,000 sheep |
| 1969 | 59,937,000 sheep |
| 1970 | 60,276,000 sheep |
| 1971 | 58,912,000 sheep |
| 1972 | 60,883,000 sheep |
| 1973 | 56,684,000 sheep |
| 1974 | 55,883,000 sheep |
| 1975 | 55,320,000 sheep |
| 1976 | 56,400,000 sheep |
| 1977 | 59,105,000 sheep |
| 1978 | 61,278,223 sheep |
| 1979 | 63,791,096 sheep |
| 1980 | 68,771,772 sheep |
| 1981 | 69,883,765 sheep |
| 1982 | 70,301,461 sheep |
| 1983 | 70,262,574 sheep |
| 1984 | 69,738,672 sheep |
| 1985 | 67,853,622 sheep |
| 1986 | 67,469,515 sheep |
| 1987 | 64,243,862 sheep |
| 1988 | 64,600,077 sheep |
| 1989 | 60,568,653 sheep |
| 1990 | 57,852,192 sheep |
| 1991 | 55,161,643 sheep |
| 1992 | 52,568,393 sheep |
| 1993 | 50,298,361 sheep |
| 1994 | 49,466,054 sheep |
| 1995 | 48,816,271 sheep |
| 1996 | 47,393,907 sheep |
| 1999 | 45,679,891 sheep |
| 2002 | 39,571,837 sheep |
| 2003 | 39,552,113 sheep |
| 2004 | 39,271,137 sheep |
| 2005 | 39,879,668 sheep |
| 2006 | 40,081,594 sheep |
| 2007 | 38,460,477 sheep |
| 2008 | 34,087,864 sheep |
| 2009 | 32,383,589 sheep |
| 2010 | 32,562,612 sheep |
| 2011 | 31,132,329 sheep |
| 2012 | 31,262,715 sheep |
| 2013 | 30,786,761 sheep |
| 2014 | 29,803,402 sheep |
| 2015 | 29,120,827 sheep |
| 2016 | 27,583,673 sheep |
| 2017 | 27,526,537 sheep |
| 2018 | 27,295,749 sheep |
| 2019 | 26,821,846 sheep |
| 2020 | 26,028,935 sheep |
| 2021 | 25,732,889 sheep |
| 2022 | 25,132,697 sheep |
| 2023 | 24,359,267 sheep |
| 2024 | 23,583,001 sheep |
03 · Compare change
Put two records on equal footing
Both lines begin at 100 in their first shared recorded year. A line at 150 is 50% above its own starting value; it does not mean the two quantities are equal.
Sheep −60.0%Dairy cattle +82.5%
Only years found in both records are shown. Missing years are left out rather than estimated.
04 · Scan the peaks
When each record was highest
Each marker shows the highest published value within that measure’s own coverage. Select a row to carry that measure and peak year back into the main chart.
What stands out
The sheep record rises for decades, then turns sharply.
The source records 29,077,000 sheep in 1935 and a peak of 70,301,461 in 1982. The 2024 count is 23,583,001, or 66.5% below that peak. This describes the published national count, not why it changed.
How to read the data and its limits
What the records show
Stats NZ’s agricultural production series combines farm area, holdings, livestock, crop harvests, and planted area. Values refer to the year ended June. The selected 14 measures keep the publisher’s names and units.
What the lines leave out
The surveys are not present in every year. Collection methods, coverage, and definitions can also change over nine decades. Connected points help reveal direction, but they do not create values for missing years or explain causes.
Source and reuse
Based on Stats NZ data curated by Jen Richmond for TidyTuesday. Stats NZ licenses its data for reuse under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. The pinned source has 4,739 rows across 193 measures.
Why this exists
The question
Following one plain-language farm measure through its exact recorded years, an indexed comparison, and a peak-year scan will make nine decades of mixed agricultural records understandable without combining incompatible units or inventing values for missing years.
What to try
Start with New Zealand's sheep count in 1982, move through its recorded years, compare it with any other selected measure on an indexed scale, and select a peak year from the full record list.
Method and limits
About the data
I selected Stats NZ's Agricultural Production Statistics through the allowlisted TidyTuesday catalog. Jen Richmond curated the source table for the Data Science Learning Community from a Figure.NZ table based on Stats NZ data. The original Figure.NZ table was retired by October 30, 2026, but TidyTuesday preserves the exact curated file at commit `9bcf450066916252422fd6add6ab184a61e62b69`, and the Stats NZ DataInfo+ record preserves the underlying official dataset description. Stats NZ licenses its produced data for reuse under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
I downloaded the commit-pinned CSV on October 30, 2026. A standard-library Python reducer verifies all 254,862 source bytes with SHA-256 `740510f4b179c9766d33e219553215fde795647a1fc2459f32f43254ea515842`, checks the five-column schema, 4,739 rows, 193 distinct measures, selected measure names, published units, unique years, and non-negative values. It retains 14 long-running measures with clear units. Repeated reductions produced the same 14,365-byte browser snapshot with SHA-256 `184cb99c90458ba807a3bff5fd051bc85ebed429bd720302d42c9c3a7990c6c6`; the browser makes no runtime request.
The exact-value view connects published records but does not fill gaps. First, latest, and peak values refer only to the years present for that measure. The comparison view keeps only years shared by both selected records and sets each record to 100 in the first shared year. An indexed value of 150 means 50% above that record's starting value; it does not make animals, tonnes, hectares, or holdings directly comparable.
The source combines agricultural censuses and surveys across nine decades. Survey timing, coverage, definitions, collection methods, and sampling or non-sampling error can change. The records describe national published measures, not individual farms, profitability, environmental effects, animal welfare, food supply, land quality, or why any measure changed. Connected lines and peak years show patterns in the record; they do not establish causes.
Skills used
- Data analysis
- Data engineering
- Statistical reasoning
- Systems design
- Visualization
- Information design
- Interaction design
- Visual design
- Creative coding
- Product thinking
- Editorial storytelling
- Accessibility
- Performance
What the data shows
- The published sheep count rises from 29,077,000 in 1935 to 70,301,461 in 1982, then falls to 23,583,001 in 2024. The latest count is 66.5% below the recorded peak.
- Farm holdings reach their highest recorded value at 92,395 in 1955. The 2024 count is 45,909, which is 50.3% below that peak.
- The wheat harvest grows from 161,475 tonnes in 1935 to 464,602 tonnes in 2024, a 187.7% increase between the first and latest records.
- The maize harvest reaches its highest recorded value in 2024 at 244,444 tonnes, 25.8 times the 1935 value. The record does not explain the change.