During the 1980s, New Zealand's primary producers experienced a crisis that derived from a combination of world-wide circumstances and previous governments' policies. Low productivity, global trade unfairness, and policy missteps thrust thousands of farmers into a debt emergency. At the moment of this crisis, a Labour Government was reorganizing the fiscal, monetary, and structural fundamentals of the entire economy with policies that increased burdens for primary producers. Within its principles of economic reform, Labour acknowledged the scale of the rural crisis, but it would not intervene to lower interest rates, return to a control of the currency, or reintroduce subsidies. Instead, it sought to guide producers to business-like practices, notwithstanding appeals that the sector was a cultural good. It devised ways to help thousands of farmers restructure debts, but expected to see a winnowing out of 'unviable' farms. Whilst there was hardship and protest, farmer representations were respectful. The sector was complex; the crisis was short-lived. Productivity gains and adjustments to more profitable products accompanied the hard-times. The crisis contributed to rural entrepreneurship, product diversification, and farm consolidation.