Going to New Zealand

gdawg87

Hi Folks, just looking for some friendly tips.
I'm 25. I plan on going to New Zealand in January. I would like to get into some farming over there. I am a country boy but my family sold our farm when I was young so I don't have much farming experience from Ireland, just driving tractors on a friends farm. I was in Australia for 2 years and while there worked on a cattle station for 2 months and also a Stud Farm for 5 months. Both tough jobs and long hours but it's something I enjoyed and would like to get back into some sort of farming in New Zealand. Would like to give dairy a try. I have truck license (both rigid and arctic) if that makes it easier to get some farm work, but because I have them less than 2 years I would have to do another test in NZ. In Australia I was driving trucks on the station before I had my license, police were never an issue and it didn't really matter because the farms are so big and I never took the truck off the property. It would probably be different in NZ I'm guessing..
Do any other people have farming experience in NZ? What did you do and what was it like? Where can I find farm work? and what was your general experience of NZ? I'm also aware that the wages are a lot less than Australia

rs8

interested in this myself, could anyone if me an approx. figure of pay per week working over there for a farmer or contractor?

gdawg87

hmm, thought this thread would have got more attention. With people leaving the country every day for work

Gman1987

I worked on a farm outside Christchurch back in 2008, wages was 30k (NZ dollars) back then with free accommodation

trixi2011

hi lads
Working in nz for a few years now on dairy farms and things are really starting to change here. There's a huge shortage of good workers on dairy farms over here and finding a good farm and company/farmer to work for has never been easier. Pay rates are closer to 40,000 now for someone coming in as a farm assistant with free accommodation and with some jobs other benefits such as free internet ,free meat ,work gear supplied etc. The length of time between days off has also changed on a lot of farms over here with some farms staff would be on a 6 and 2 or 8 and 3 roster as apposed to the 11 and 3 or 12 and 2 that used to be the norm. If you look up Fonterra's website called fencepost.co.nz there should be stacks of jobs in every area of the country. Hope that helps

gdawg87

trixi2011 wrote: »

hi lads
Working in nz for a few years now on dairy farms and things are really starting to change here. There's a huge shortage of good workers on dairy farms over here and finding a good farm and company/farmer to work for has never been easier. Pay rates are closer to 40,000 now for someone coming in as a farm assistant with free accommodation and with some jobs other benefits such as free internet ,free meat ,work gear supplied etc. The length of time between days off has also changed on a lot of farms over here with some farms staff would be on a 6 and 2 or 8 and 3 roster as apposed to the 11 and 3 or 12 and 2 that used to be the norm. If you look up Fonterra's website called fencepost.co.nz there should be stacks of jobs in every area of the country. Hope that helps

Great information!