We all know that attracting and retaining great staff is an ongoing challenge for the dairy sector. A group of Canterbury dairy farmers have put their heads together and come up with one solution to the problem – they’ve set up a training programme to attract young university graduates into dairying, fast-track them in their careers, and give them skills and support to succeed. Each graduate is matched with a reputable farmer, paid a competitive salary, and paid to attend 25 modules covering everything from pasture management skills to banking basics.  This year’s pilot programme has gone brilliantly, and to tell us all about in this episode is Campbell Tait, one of the farmers who’s helped set up this programme, and Peter O’Connor, one of the graduates taking part.

Chapters:
00:57 – About our guests
03:30 – About the graduate training programme
09:23 – Peter’s experience in the programme
13:06 – Modules – frequency, topics, creation
16:58 – Employment agreements, pay and accommodation
18:27 – DairyNZ’s support 
19:26 – What’s next and who’s interested
20:51 – Programme benefits and how to sign up

Have feedback or ideas for future episodes? Email us at [email protected]

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