The Chief Coroner hopes more detailed reporting of farmer suicides will help family and friends understand and prevent further deaths.
About 25 farmers have killed themselves in each of the past three years.
Chief Coroner Neil MacLean says factors in suicides of farmers include financial uncertainty, farm work pressures, environmental challenges and dispersed family support.
"Farming and relationship to farming, and this includes farmers' partners and spouses, have a higher suicide rate than the general community," he says.
He says rural stoicism means stress and depression are not talked about, leaving farmers to deal with problems alone and slip into risky behaviour such as heavy drinking.
Judge MacLean wants the country's 16 coroners to report more about what leads to farmer suicides, to highlight stresses and the help that is available.
The Taranaki manager of the Government-backed Like Minds programme, Gordon Hudson, says farmers, in particular in Taranaki, are highly over-represented in suicide statistics.
"I think the boat's been missed in rural communities because of the long-term culture of the rural community being seen as staunch. They see emotional vulnerability as something they don't want to talk about, don't want to admit to."
He says their silence has contributed to a lack of suicide-prevention measures aimed at farmers.
