Do employer groups help with dairy farm employment? Why hasn’t the idea ‘caught-on’?

Abstract

Dairy employer groups began to appear about 2000 in response to employment difficulties as the dairy farm labour market encountered low unemployment. Edkins and Tipples (2002) reported to LEW 10 on the development of the Amuri Dairy Employers Group (ADEG). Since then other groups and enterprises have been established and flourished or failed. In this paper developments since 2002 are considered. Factors promoting their success are contrasted with causes of failure. In that time the labour force in dairy farming has changed radically (Tipples, Callister & Trafford, 2010). The paper considers how these changes have fitted with dairy employer groups and suggests ways in which the benefits experienced could be further developed and shared more widely.