Global competition for dairy sector staff

Finding workers for dairy farms has emerged as a global problem, with New Zealand farmers now hit by the state’s new visa conditions which will result in them not being able to retain their best migrant staff.

Meanwhile, Ireland needs to find 2,000 new dairy farm employees over the next nine years, plus 4,000 successors to our existing dairy farmers, according to a new Teagasc report.

EU farmers could well end up poaching some of the New Zealand dairy farm workers, following the government in Wellington having chosen to ignore farmers’ concerns about migrant staff.

In that country, dairy provides 35,000 on-farm jobs, and 3,774 of these are currently filled by people from overseas.

New Zealand’s new immigration policy requires migrant herd managers and farm assistants to have their visas reviewed every year, they cannot bring their family to New Zealand, and they must leave the country after three years.

Only migrant staff on dairy farms paid over $35.24 per hour (€22) will avoid these rules.

“This means our farmers will lose some of their best staff,” said Dr Tim Mackle, CEO of DairyNZ, a provider of services to the dairy farming industry.

“Without being able to retain skilled migrant staff, dairy farms in several regions, especially Southland and Canterbury, will be severely impacted in terms of profitability.”

With decreasing rural populations, migrant staff have been the answer for many New Zealand dairy farms, the base of the dairy sector which earns the country about $12 billion in exports annually (€7.5bn).

Not being able to retain good staff is the latest challenge for New Zealand’s milk industry, which has seen remarkable growth in 20 years, with production more than doubling, but which has recently stumbled.

Now, with labour difficulties added to environmental regulation constraints, dairy farm expansion has become much more difficult in New Zealand.