OAD milking and employment: a surprise package

Abstract

The dairy industry is New Zealand’s top export earner and has been going through a growth period under the influence of rapidly rising world prices for milk products. Employment conditions in this major sector of the economy have been problematic. Once-a-Day (OAD) milking appeared to provide the key system change which held the possibility of dairy farming becoming socially sustainable rather that lurching from one employment crisis to the next (Tipples and Verwoerd, 2005). However, while the changes brought about by conversion to OAD milking are very positive, they have not affected dairy farm employment in some of the ways which were anticipated. The paper reports some findings of an in-depth qualitative study of the human face of OAD milking and their implications, set in the context of the recently released data from the 2006 Census of Population.