Irish workers experiences in dairy employment in Canterbury

Abstract

Through an arrangement with University College, Dublin (UCD), a group of 24 Irish agricultural students came to Canterbury, New Zealand, to carry out their degrees' practical dairy work of approximately four months over the summer/autumn of 2011. Lincoln University researchers had been carrying out a dairy employee survey of AglTO students across New Zealand at this time. The availability of the Irish students presented an opportunity to use the survey to gauge their impressions of employment in New Zealand's dairy industry compared to equivalent work in Ireland. The results from their responses to the questionnaire are compared to the results from the 33 respondents from the mid-Canterbury block survey and the 40 mid-Canterbury AglTO respondents.