The Covid-19 flu pandemic may have thrown a wintry pall over the careers of thousands of Kiwis but farming is a shining beacon of hope for many displaced workers.

A successful agricultural redeployment expo in Southland earlier this month resulted in more than 100 people pre-registering with the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) to do a free agricultural contracting course, which is now underway.

Yesterday (June 25), the Minister of Agriculture Damien O’Connor announced a multi-agency $3.5 million economic package to encourage new-found farmers to explore dairying and undertake DairyNZ’s GoDairy training modules.

Those courses for newcomers are also underway, with 64 of an expected 500 participants receiving an online introduction to farming, followed by two weeks of hands-on training on farms. The training is for New Zealand residents and citizens only.

DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle said although the new GoDairy campaign was still in its early days, there was good interest from people wanting to pursue a dairy farming career. 

It had attracted people from a range of careers– “from tourism and hospitality to engineering, finance, and truck drivers" and most had easily transferrable work and life skills.

“Like all successful businesses, dairy farming needs good talent. Currently there are 1,000 job vacancies on dairy farms nationwide," Dr Mackle said.

The Southern Institute of Technology expo was held on June 10 and 11 in Queenstown and Te Anau and attended by 200 people – 130 in Queenstown and 83 in Te Anau.

The Southern Institute of Technology and staff at its Telford campus in Balclutha are teaching redundant workers the skills to redeploy as contractors or farm workers. The first intake of 18 people are now two weeks through a six-week course on how to cultivate land, plant and harvest crops, work with tractors, harvesters and other essential farm equipment. 

The first two weeks have been spent at the Telford Campus learning to drive tractors and forklifts, as well as doing health and safety courses and sitting workplace first aid qualifications. From next week, the participants move to Invercargill for two weeks driver training with New Zealand’s largest privately-owned transport company, the H W Richardson Group, before being allocated a two-week work placement to gain more experience.

Telford campus programme manager Debbie Rankin said the first intake was a “really good group" of people from diverse backgrounds, who had been grateful for free training and having their costs covered.

People came from all over the Southland to do the course, with one woman travelling from Nelson to take up the opportunity, she said.

“It is the first one and they’ve given us really valuable feedback on the courses. It is tough and a lot of them have made really challenging changes to their careers," Ms Rankin said.

“The tutors have also given us good feedback. They’ve all said you cannot judge a book by its cover. There is so much diversity."

Ms Rankin confirmed a total of six agricultural contracting courses (120 places) had been offered, for which 95 applications had already been received this week.

Extra courses had been contemplated, but as the tutors were seasonal contractors, it was likely they would not be available when it came time to teach them, she said.

Representatives from the Richardson Group had visited Telford during the first two weeks to help evaluate the participants and identify those who needed more support, and would also help find placements for them, she said.

 “We have really learned a lot. Even if they don’t go into rural contracting, they are doing first aid courses and learning other workplace skills that can help them become a good farm worker," Ms Rankin said.