The human face of once-a-day milking

Abstract

This report concerns exactly what the title The Human Face of Once-a-Day Milking suggests: the impact of Once-a-day milking on farmers, their families and staff. It is a document about people: their needs, values, and the creative ways in which they try to deal with the fiercely stressful and competitive environment that dairy farming in New Zealand has become. It is about the ways they protect their sanity while still working hard and getting the job done; it is about trying to be successful dairy farmers and good parents and caring children and contributing members of society and salvaging a little bit of “me” time. It is about hopes and dreams and reclaiming the joys and challenges and satisfactions of being a farmer by working hard but refusing to accept drudgery. This report is not a “how-to” manual, nor is it a prescriptive report. There is some reference to farmers’ experience of production and income, but this is qualitative rather than quantitative - it is simply a record of what farmers who have switched from the traditional system of milking twice a day to milking once a day have experienced.