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At last year’s Royal Ulster Agricultural Society (RUAS) Winter Fair at Balmoral Park outside Lisburn I bumped into Oliver Carvill.
I last saw Oliver nearly 20 years ago, and knew little about his career other than he had left the country when he had finished agricultural college.
We first met when Oliver turned up at Greenmount College in Antrim as a 16 year-old, having finished his GCSE’s (similar to the Junior Cert). I had just joined the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland (NI) and was immediately dispatched off to Greenmount to lecture students (a great personal development experience for any graduate).
From a beef and sheep farm outside the small village of Greencastle, near Kilkeel in Co Down, Oliver started out on the one-year National Certificate in agriculture course (equivalent to Level 4 Leaving Cert). Five years later he was leaving college with a Higher National Diploma (now known as a Foundation Degree).
After his first year at Greenmount, Oliver decided to progress onto the National Diploma course. It includes a middle year working on a farm, and most students usually ended up on a farm in NI, and reasonably close to home.
Oliver went slightly further afield and at 17 years old was two hours down the road in Meath on the dairy farm of Christy Reynolds.
He was very driven and focused, but had a good work-life balance
“They made it easy for me. I lived in the home house with Christy’s mother,” recounts Oliver, although he still reminds Christy of his first days on the farm. It was September 1999, and Meath had just won the all-Ireland, with Christy’s nephew Paddy on the team. The celebrations went on for the best part of two weeks, and Oliver didn’t see much of Christy.
“I looked up to Christy. He was very driven and focused, but had a good work-life balance. They worked hard and played hard – it was a great learning experience,” said Oliver.
Once he had completed his National Diploma, he spent the summer working on the 5,000-acre Coldham Estate tillage farm in Cambridge. At the time, it was one of a number of farms run by Farmcare Trading Ltd, part of the Co-op group, the largest farming operation in Britain. The following summer, Oliver returned to England to work at Lutton Farm where he joined a team baling 50,000 large Hesston straw bales for a local power station contract. The farm also had a 70ha soft fruit business outside Peterborough.
When he finished his Greenmount studies in 2002, he took up a job working for Co Derry-based business BP McKeefry which had a contract with Thames Water in England for umbilical injection of liquid waste to farmland.
The following year, he joined Agrivert in Gloucestershire which operates the largest fleet of terragators in Europe, applying biosolids to land on behalf on Anglia Water.
But by 2006 Oliver was back home in NI, and had swapped dry land for the sea, spending the summer on board a mussel dredger in Carlingford Lough.
Milking cows
But Oliver’s passion is farming, and later that year he got a job with Farm Relief Services (FRS), and covered a vacancy in the dairy unit at his old stomping ground at Greenmount College.
He must have made a good impression, and was offered a full-time role on the college farm.
That was when he first heard about potential work in Saudi with Almarai (a company started in 1977 by Irish brothers Alastair and Paddy McGuckian), along with Saudi businessman Prince Sultan bin Mohammed bin Saud Al-Kabir.
Initially Oliver was given a career break by Greenmount, but ended up 11 years in Saudi with Almarai.
5,000 cows
Oliver started as a unit manager on the 5,000-cow Al Rabiah dairy farm, located about two hours south of the capital, Riyadh. The farm manager at the time was Michael McDonald, also a former Greenmount student, and now a senior executive within Almarai.
In 2012, Oliver switched over to Al Badiah farm, which was in the process of moving from 10,000 to 20,000 cows. The following year, and until he finished with Almarai in February 2019, he was assistant farm manager at Al Nakheel Dairy, a farm with around 4,000 milking cows.
We worked from 6am to 6pm, seven days a week, so while the money was good, you earned it
At the time, his contract gave him 106 days off per year, and six flights, so he could work for six weeks, and come home for two weeks. “We worked from 6am to 6pm, seven days a week, so while the money was good, you earned it,” said Oliver.
While he did come home a lot, he also took the opportunity to visit other parts of the world, including Sri Lanka, and Australia where he travelled the east coast, Great Ocean Road, the Gold Coast, and took in the Melbourne Cup.
He also joined the Naomh Alee GAA club, which was established back in 1994 and plays at Pairc Ishbilia on Ishbilia Compound in Riyadh. “It was a two-hour journey for us to go and kick a football, but it was important to get off the farm. We fielded teams of multi-nationals, including English, Kiwis, Australians, Canadians and South Africans. There were also lots of Irish. We played in tournaments in Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi,” said Oliver. He also captained one of two teams back in 2012 that won the Dubai 7s tournament under the management of Patrick Moynagh, a first for the club.
It was a great experience, but it was never going to be a place that I called home
While he was following Christy’s advice – working hard, and playing hard – he wasn’t necessarily saving a lot of money.
“After the first few years, I realised there was a conveyor belt of people, and after three or four years they were gone. I needed to knuckle down, save money and start thinking about my long-term exit strategy. It was a great experience, but it was never going to be a place that I called home.”
So back to our chance meeting at the RUAS Winter Fair. It was at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) stand, the main agri-food research organisation in NI.
In February 2019, just a week after returning from Saudi, Oliver took up the role of farm manager at AFBI’s Hillsborough site, and is responsible for farming operations on the 300ha research farm. With over 300 dairy cows, beef cattle, sheep and pigs, he has landed one of the top farm management roles in NI.
“All the different jobs have been stepping stones to something else. Coming back from Saudi I knew I needed something that was going to challenge. We have seven farm staff – our role is quite simple – it is to service the science being done on the farm” he explained.
So what guidance does Oliver have for young people setting out on their career in agriculture?
“The first thing, is when you get good advice, take it on board. The staff at Greenmount steered me on the correct career path.
“Secondly, open up your mind. One thing that really struck me in Saudi is there are three or four professions that can take you right around the world – teaching, nursing, construction and agriculture. There are still great opportunities in Saudi. But the same also applies to many countries, especially in Eastern Europe,” said Oliver.
His third piece of advice is to keep on learning. On some of the largest farms in Saudi there were up to 700 staff, and given the scale involved, everyone worked in individual teams (such as breeding; feeding; youngstock), and to standard processes and schedules. However, many of the workers came to Saudi with no farming background.
If you want to be successful at anything, you have to surround yourself with good people
“The easiest people to teach in Saudi were the ones who wanted to learn. We had people there who had never saw a cow calve, but they became the best at it. Back yourself – follow your interest, follow your passion – it becomes easy after that,” Oliver explained.
Lastly, having returned to NI, he is appreciative of the support received from the staff at AFBI Hillsborough. “If you want to be successful at anything, you have to surround yourself with good people. People that know how to manage themselves. You then just have to create the environment for them to work in and excel.”
And of course I don’t need to remind him, I taught him everything he knows.
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