There is no denying the fact that dairy is the backbone of New Zealand’s economy with the sector more and more reliant on migrants, who are willing to work on isolated rural farms. Many, including from India, come from places where technology is not so advanced. For them, the Lincoln University (LU) Dairy Farm Open Day held in November in the South Island’s Selwyn district, provided an excellent opportunity to get to know what actually goes inside a farm and maybe explore some career options.
To aid this, all the seven partner organisations—Lincoln University, DairyNZ, South Island Dairy Farmers (represented by the South Island Dairy Event (SIDE) network), Ravensdown Fertiliser Cooperative Limited, Plant & Food Research, Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC), and AgResearch—who are managing the 186-hectare irrigated property of which 160 hectares is the milking platform, were at hand educating the gathering about the options available.
Property
For those who are sceptical about the harmful effects of diary to New Zealand’s environment due to the increased nitrogen content in the ground, Jim Moir, senior lecturer in Soil Fertility at the LU explained, “This farm's objective is to ensure that the average annual concentration of nitrate-N in drainage water from below the plant root zone remains below the critical value (16 mg N/L) specified in Environment Canterbury’s proposed regional rule. This is not to say that challenges are not there. But we are working towards it.”
The organisers also noted that while New Zealand’s 12,000 dairy farmers work with or employ another 30,000 people on farm, thousands more are employed in associated businesses and in dairy factories. Moreover, South Island dairy production is the fastest growing in the country, representing 39% of total New Zealand milk solids production, from 23.8% of the country’s herds and 35.8% of its cows. This provides huge opportunities to those interested, they added.
Ara will host Indian students in January
Christchurch-based Ara Institute of Canterbury—formerly Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology—will be hosting 10 students from Kumaraguru College of Technology (KCT), Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, for its Motorsport Engineering Systems Analysis programme in January 2017. This initiative is part of Ara’s ongoing efforts in developing mutually beneficial relationships with institutions in India. So far, the Polytechnic has signed MoUs with Jaipuria Institute of Management, Rizvi College of Arts, Science & Commerce, and Gujarat Technological University, apart from KCT. Notably, the number of international students coming to Ara from India has steadily increased, from 160 in 2014 to more than double this year. In 2016, of the total 1,017 full-time international students studying at Ara, 365 are from India, according to the figures provided by the institute.