Mr Bagrie opened his presentation at the Beef + Lamb New Zealand event AgriInnovation Summit in Alexandra on a positive note.
Anyone who had stuck with farming was in a better position than someone who had sold their farm and invested in companies such as the Du Val Property Group, The Warehouse Group or Fletcher Building.
"Farming is a pretty good place to be," he said.
However, if a farming business was relying on a movement of 100 basis points to lower interest rates "then you’ve got a bigger problem with your farm".
Mr Bagrie was raised on an orchard in Central Otago and now lives between Auckland and Wellington.
"My parents lost it all in the 1980s. They lost it all not because of the economy, they lost it all because of bad business practices. We were never orchardists," he said.
A business underperforming should be blamed on the people running it rather than the economy.
"The success of any business ultimately comes down to the people involved in it and whether you’re any bloody good at what you do."
He praised Briscoe Group managing director and deputy chairman Rod Duke for the performance of the company compared to other big-box retailers.
"It’s a tough market but he comes out and describes second-quarter sales as spectacular."
He made the same comparison between two meat companies.
Alliance Group made a $97.9 million loss before tax for the year ending September 30, 2023, and Anzco Foods made a net profit before tax of $147.7 million for the 2022 financial year.
Revenue in different primary sectors include "dairy bouncing up, beef not looking too bad and sheep being bloody awful" but every farmer had been battling rising costs, he said.
"When you see a 40% jump in costs in three to four years you’ve got problems, irrespective of where the revenue line is."
The way to lower inflation was by making times tough to stop people spending. He used tractor sales as a gauge of the economy, which had fallen up to 30% in the past year.
Although interest rates were beginning to fall, some "bitter medicine" still needed to be swallowed by New Zealanders.
He believed rural people were better placed than urban people to survive tough economic times.
"You’ve got a bit of match fitness, a bit of a harder edge to get through."
He was concerned when interest rates were lowered, people would celebrate when there were long-term issues in the economy.
Politicians focused on the short term because of the election cycle and chased votes every three years.
In the budget, tax cuts should not have been a priority, he said.
"Don’t buy in to this fantasy associated with lower interest rates. There is a hell of a lot of bigger picture work that needs to get done to fix and repair this economy."
The complicated long-term issues include climate change, education, infrastructure and being environmentally responsible.
"If we are not environmentally responsible, countries are not going to want to do trade deals with us."
The golden era of trade was over and market protectionism was on the rise.
New Zealand was one of the smallest exporters in terms of share of GDP of the member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
"It is becoming debatable if we can actually call ourselves a trading nation."
The government’s plan to double exports needs more goods to be produced to supply international markets.
However, producing more good to export needs costs in control and access to labour and capital.
"It is not that easy to produce the stuff."
The global economy was "not too bad but certainly not hot".
Interest rates in New Zealand were dropping because the global economy was underperforming.
A rise in the price of gold to $US2500 ($4000) per ounce was a sign "there’s a whole lot of people worried behind the scenes".
"That’s like a hedge against trusting institutions — it’s a hedge against anything going seriously wrong."
An ongoing issue in New Zealand was flat productivity growth.
Productivity growth included labour productivity and capital productivity, such as the management of assets and infrastructure.
"As a country, we are atrocious at how we manage assets."
New Zealand’s growth model for 30 years had been simple, he said.
"To sell more expensive houses to each other, which drives a housing affordability crisis and encourages people aged 18 to 30 to travel overseas and not come back."
The New Zealand economy had "relied on migration, tourism and China".
"We have been lucky that export prices have risen quicker than import prices."
To get a rise in productivity growth, there needed to be the right settings to drive investment.
Banks were pricing for risk and not taking any risk and they needed to be doing both, he said.
"If you charge a decent business margin, banks take some goddamn risk."
