Dairy farmers’ urgent need
In February, the last of David McFarlane’s dairy herd were culled as part of the Government’s Mycoplasma bovis eradication programme.
Now the mid-Canterbury farmer faces calving his new herd without his only staff member, left stranded in the Philippines due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Ryan Baricuatro has worked on McFarlane’s 550-cow family farm near Carew, west of Ashburton, for seven years. In early March, with no cows on the farm following the cull and Baricuatro’s wife due to have a baby in the Philippines, McFarlane encouraged him take leave and return home .
‘‘We didn’t expect him to be gone for two months,’’ McFarlane said. ‘‘With his knowledge of the farm and the way we operate, he’ll be integral to getting us back and running after Mycoplasma bovis and at calving.’’
The lockdown has left many New Zealanders unexpectedly out of work, but McFarlane said replacing Baricuatro wasn’t as simple as ‘‘just hiring a Kiwi’’.
‘‘These are mid- to highlyskilled guys with years of experience. There simply haven’t been enough New Zealanders to do the job and we need these guys to come back to train new staff.
The New Zealand border is currently closed to all but New Zealand citizens and permanent residents. Exceptions can be made but the bar was set high to help stop the spread of Covid-19, an Immigration New Zealand spokeswoman said.
Requests for an exception as an ‘‘other essential worker’’ – that is, not health workers – had to be specifically agreed by the Government, she said.
Since the border exceptions process was put in place, Immigration NZ had received 11,301 requests for a border exception and 2200 of those resulted in an invitation to apply for a visa. Of the 1896 subsequent applications, 1808 were approved.
After initially contacting Immigration NZ to try to secure Baricuatro’s re-entry, McFarlane is working with immigration law and recruitment agency The Regions to arrange his return and quarantine. ‘‘I’ve put my hand up and said, ‘Yes, user-pays quarantine for 14 days,’’’ he said. ‘‘That’s fine, I just need to get him back here.’’ Geraldine farmer Tom Hargreaves shares McFarlane’s concerns.
Last May, his sheep and beef farming family bought the property next door and hired two staff, including Uruguayan Patricia Grilli, to run a 420-cow dairy operation. After a successful first season on the farm, Grilli took time off to return to Uruguay for her father’s surprise birthday celebrations. ‘‘The whole idea was for her to go for two weeks but when things started to look more serious, she changed her flights to come back earlier.’’
Despite their best efforts, including providing Grilli with a letter from her employer and a lawyer, she was turned away by customs officials at the airport in Uruguay.
That’s left Hargreaves worried and his team stretched thin to cover Grilli’s role through winter.
‘‘We don’t really know what’s happening. Nothing has been shown to us, so we’re really in the dark and getting more and more nervous,’’ he said.
‘‘The dairy farm should start up from August 1, but we really needed her over winter as well.’’
Hargreaves has an immigration lawyer working to get Grilli back as soon as possible and, like McFarlane, is willing to pay for his worker’s quarantine accommodation, if she is able to return.
With that bill likely to be about $3000, on top of airfares and legal fees, Hargreaves said it could cost up to $8000 to bring Grilli back.
As of Wednesday, DairyNZ was aware of at least 40 skilled workers who had taken ill-timed holidays and are now unable to get back into New Zealand.
DairyNZ chief executive Tim Mackle agreed it could become a human and animal welfare issue if dairy farms were understaffed or had staff with the wrong skillsets come calving.
Meanwhile, the industry was facing a bigger problem if lower skilled workers already in the country couldn’t get their visa extended, he said.
‘‘These people are needed on farms to milk the cows and keep businesses running, especially in the short-term over the busy calving time from July to October.’’