Federated Farmers has renewed a call for an urgent reform of the rates system used by local government.
With councils struggling to control costs and facing ratepayer resistance to further rate rises, the federation says it's time to reduce their reliance on the narrow property based rating system.
It wants central Government to increase funding for roads, pay rates on Crown land and providing a share of GST revenue.
The federation also says councils need to think about how they can make better use of existing ways of reducing their reliance on property rates, such as charging users more for the services they provide.
