For the New Zealand (NZ) beef farmer, deciding on a business direction, developing and successfully implementing a strategy is critical for future success. Gathering information on future trends and issues is an important part of the process to ensure appropriate capabilities and contingencies are developed. The aim of this paper is to examine some of the future trends and issues for the NZ beef industry through to 2010, this is done through the use SWOT and PEST analysis. Secondly the paper suggests potential competencies farmers will need to develop to successfully survive in 2010. Keywords: beef industry, beef farmer s, business competencies, future trends, PEST analysis, SWOT analysis
