KEY POINTS:
If you like variety, being in the outdoors, working with animals, physical as well as mental challenges, and the opportunity to build up your own land-based business, then farming could be for you.
The main type of farming in New Zealand is pastoral farming, which is essentially the
business of running livestock - cattle, sheep or deer - on grass. Harvest from a typical New Zealand farm might include young stock for sale, finished stock for slaughter, wool or milk. In many respects, farming is the source of basic necessities for life - food and clothing - which ensures it's an industry with a future.
New Zealand farmers are often also part-owners of global export marketing businesses that have been built up through off-farm co-operatives. For decades, farming has been this country's largest earner of export dollars.
Besides handling and caring for stock, Kiwi farmers work with soil, pasture and mechanical equipment, manage projects, do accounts, market produce and often manage staff - to name a few key areas.
Day-to-day, farming means being out on the land, working with the seasonal cycles. While a vast array of technological developments have made the work easier, clearly you've got to be okay with getting dirty and doing physical work if you're going to go farming. Increasingly, if you want to get ahead in farming, you've also got to develop business and management skills, as well as a working knowledge of science.
The farming sector needs young, able people to help run farming operations - these days often worth millions of dollars - and also go-ahead, entrepeneurial types who want to develop farming businesses. Farming has proved very good at supporting people who are new to the industry to progress towards farming goals.
The farming industry is aware that it's in a competitive market for workers. In the past the industry was known to have a high demand for relatively unskilled workers who worked long hours at certain times of the year, and in general pay rates were relatively low. Increasingly, farming has become more businesslike and technical, and the nature of the work has changed a lot.
As one experienced farmer says, "You used to give a farm worker a spade and ask them to go dig a hole. Now you give them $200,000 worth of machinery to work with."
The best incentive for young people in farming has been the ability to build up a career and possibly a business, at the same time as working and earning a living.
The remuneration for a competent manager, for example, can include a more-than-competitive salary package and a rent-free house.
The place to start is to get work on a farm and do some training. Over time, a young person can build up a reputation, some assets and relationships, along with skills and experience. This will mean steady work in the farming sector and can also provide a platform for those who want to take the next step towards management or ownership.
It's advisable for young people to make sure they're informed about good practice in farming employment and seek work with farmers who've taken care about the job they're offering and the working conditions.
For example, as employers, farmers have a responsibility to provide protection devices such as ear-muffs and to allow fair amounts of time off.
In a practical field like farming, it's useful to combine training with on-farm experience. The Agriculture Industry Training Organisation co-ordinates training for the whole industry, including ongoing training for people as they progress in the industry, and its website (www.agricultureito.ac.nz) is a useful first point of contact for any type of course.
Once someone has become an experienced manager and shown good ability, it's usually possible to find a family or equity partnership who own a property and will allow a young person to be part of a financial business arrangement (such as 50:50 sharemilking in dairying) in return for a commitment to provide labour and day-to-day management and perhaps some assets (such as stock). As part of these arrangements, the manager can seek to further build up their equity over time. The amounts of money needed to buy a property are large, but people do get there by breaking it down into short-term goals.
"Every day is different. There's a new challenge every day," says 30-year old Jacob Horton of Pongakawa Flats, who's close to farm ownership now after 12 years in the industry.
He decided to go farming in his sixth form year, after visiting relatives' and other farms when he was growing up. The appeal? "The land, the livestock, the outdoors. It seemed like a real man's job. I knew the realities of farming life - the early morning starts and work seven days a week," says Horton. "Early on I had excellent employers who were interested in me and encouraged me, who were very good farmers and taught me good farming skills, and had a good farming lifestyle themselves."
After a couple of years Horton stepped up to a dairy manager position on another farm and then got a lower-order (20 per cent) sharemilking job. His new wife Sheree joined him in a partnership - which works well, says Horton.
Five years after he entered farming, the Hortons had enough money to buy a herd and go into a 50:50 sharemilking position with Landcorp Farming.
"We were very good savers. We saved 50 per cent of everything we earned," he says. "You have to make some sacrifices for a few years. Once you've got a number of years of experience and a lump of equity, you're away."
Horton says a lot of information about farming is readily available and it's free.
"Lots of people will help you. For example, the banks are keen to help young people move through the industry, and you can find out a lot from other farmers who have achieved."
The Hortons have been with Landcorp for eight seasons. They now run three farms as one unit and have averaged an annual equity growth of 35 per cent for each of the past seven years. Last year they were named Bay of Plenty Sharemilkers of the Year.
Now employing staff himself, Horton says attitude is important.
"I look for people who want to learn, are committed to dairying and will stick it out through thick and thin. Also I want people with a pleasant personality who I'll enjoy working with, who like livestock and don't mind early mornings."
While life out in farming areas may seem isolated, Horton agrees that many young farmers enjoy an excellent social life that would be the envy of their city peers. It's a different style of social life - based more around barbecues, farming events, sports and community get-togethers rather than the mall, computer games or the movies.
An excellent networking group for young people in farming is the Young Farmers organisation, which organises popular social events in farming areas and each year runs the high-profile National Young Farmer of the Year competition.
In pursuing farming, young people see a future where they can build up a business and be self-employed and independent, get a lot of challenges in a typical working day, and be outdoors and not stuck doing nine-to-five in a city office. It's a career that's "out there" in every sense.