Paul Anderson, Higher National Diploma Agriculture student, Greenmount Campus, CAFRE.

At present I am commencing the final year of the Higher National Diploma in Agriculture at the Greenmount Campus of CAFRE. As part of this course it was necessary to complete 48 weeks work experience and I was given the excellent opportunity of working on an 800 cow dairy enterprise on a large farm in New Zealand owned by Mr. Eddie Glass. Dairying was not the only enterprise on the farm. It had a 100-sow birth to bacon pig enterprise, grew 800 acres of crops including kale and oil seed rape and in addition finished all bull calves on a bull beef system.

Coming from a beef suckler farm in Co Donegal, my only experience with milking cows was during my first year in the CREAM project at Greenmount Campus, CAFRE. The experience I gained from CREAM enterprise management proved to be invaluable to me and made me fully aware of the important issues regarding milking, feeding, breeding, and the daily management of dairy cows.

I first arrived in New Zealand in the winter of July 2004-at this stage the cows had been dried off and were offered winter crops such as kale, silage and straw as a supplement to grazed grass. The cows calved down from late August until mid October. After calving the cows were fed solely on grass on one-day grazing paddocks. The cows were milked twice daily through a Herringbone Milking Sheds. This is a common design of parlour in New Zealand although more farmers are expanding into Rotary Milking Sheds.

The parlours were of a relatively simple design. The main difference compared to parlours in Northern Ireland being that they only had one wall at the side and a roof for cover, which left the shed very open.

As my experience in New Zealand came to an end the most valuable thing I can bring back home was not only the experience of travelling the world, but also the experience of observing different farming techniques. I am looking forward to my final year at the Campus and the opportunity to implement some of the things that I learnt within the CREAM project. Many of the practices that I observed in New Zealand could easily be applied in the Northern Ireland dairy industry. For example, I was extremely impressed with the compact breeding and calving system.

I am sure that in the future, whether I choose to further my education or enter the agricultural industry in full time employment, the experience that I gained both abroad on work experience and within the CREAM project at Greenmount, will give me the knowledge and confidence to progress