After arriving in Auckland International Airport, Brian O’Carroll, Aaron O’Reilly and I anxiously waited to meet Stephen Roach, director of the Roach Dairy Group, in the arrivals hall. Stephen’s ancestors made the journey out to New Zealand from Co Cork to follow their own farming career.

We drove south from Auckland Airport into the Waikato Basin to our placement position 13km south of Morrinsville, the oldest dairying town in New Zealand and one of the most concentrated dairying regions in the world. Travelling through the countryside, our expectations of a lush green southern paradise were quickly slipping away.

Scorched pastures

This was the thought that we grew up with in Ireland, as many would talk of these low-cost systems and plentiful pastures that grow all year around. The landscape was in the middle of summer back in January, and in the Waikato that means El Nino, with wickedly hot winds burning off the pasture and consistently hot days over 30°C. All the pastures were scorched, with very little grass available.

Dotted through the countryside as expected were herds of purebred Jersey and Jersey cross cows. On arrival on the farm, we were shown around the milking parlours and introduced to the herds that had just come out in the fields after evening milking.

Immediately, we were struck by the sheer scale of the business the Roaches were running

Immediately, we were struck by the sheer scale of the business the Roaches were running. Their own two farms are located directly across the road from each other. One farm milks 300 cows, the other milks 650 cows.

Brian and I work on the large farm with two Filipino workers. This farm has a 40-unit herringbone parlour with a standoff pad capable of holding up to 500 cows. This is used to feed silage and maize with a feed-out wagon to supplement the cows’ diet.

There are also two calf-rearing barns in the farmyard, which can hold up to 300 calves each. We were struck by how basic our surroundings were: no cubicle sheds, feed stores, machinery sheds, workshops or big slurry pits. The machinery on the farm is also minimal compared with what you would expect on an Irish farm of the same size.

As we settled into our on-farm accommodation on the first night discussing our new workplace for the next five months, we were blown away by what we had just seen. Compared with the farms we come from and the parlours we had worked in, this was on a completely different scale.

Thinking of the next day was daunting – a 4.30am start. How long will it take us to get the milking done? Will we be able to keep up with the pace in the parlour?

Ger Boland is a second-year student in the BSc in Agriculture student at Waterford Institute of Technology from Boultheeny, Dolla, Nenagh, Co Tipperary. He received the ASA/Glanbia Group travel bursary supported by the Irish Farmers Journal.

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