The Institute of Directors says more farmers should be putting in place processes to ensure their operations function well now, and can expand and become more profitable over time.
The institute is running workshops in Invercargill this week, to help farmers understand what governance means and how introducing a board of directors can help their business grow.
The course will be replicated around the country later this year.
Institute acting chief executive Simon Arcus said small family operations often did not consider boards, or were put off by the term governance, but more should be considering it.
"Governance is critical because it's about taking yourself out of the day to day of the business. We talk about governance being working more on the business than in the business and it's about planning for the future.
"One of the risks obviously with rural business is that you can get very involved in the day to day and not take that time to step back and think how do we plan for the future, how do we best structure this company and take it forward.
"It's a big first step and the big issue is independence, what we see, and this happens in all family businesses particularly, is companies will bring on the local lawyer or the local accountant, who they know well, as an independent director, but one of the things the course will challenge people attending is whether that person is really independent enough to advise them."
