Survey exposes mental and financial toll on contract milkers

Fresh and very real concern around the treatment of contract milkers has arisen.

It has come after a contract milking survey published by Sharefarming Consultants revealed that 43% of respondents had experienced abusive behaviour from a farm owner, and 72.2% had “gone mentally’’ or “financially backwards’’ while contract milking.

The survey was taken over 10 days, from December 20 to 30 last year, and was shared on Instagram and Facebook.

It included 276 responses of which 201 were existing contract milkers, and 75 who’d either left the sector or moved into different roles.

Comments on Sharefarming Consultants’ LinkedIn post called contract milking “fundamentally broken,” and praised the report for pushing back the “dairy toxic positivity narrative and propaganda”.

“The results of this survey were disappointing but in no way surprising,” cofounder Louise Gibson wrote at the beginning of the report.

“We have for too long focussed as an industry on attracting talent but failed to care for the talent once it gets here.

“I implore the readers of this report to consider what the results of this survey mean for our sector… we need to put solutions on the table,” she said.

Federated Farmers’ national sharefarmer chairperson Sam Ebbett said the results were “concerning’’ but said timing context was important.

“When you’re capturing data from 10-plus years ago, when we weren’t doing as much work as we are now, some of the numbers may be a bit skew-whiff.”

He’d received a few “frustrated” calls following media pickup of the survey.

“It was more people [being] a little frustrated that it was painting our industry in a negative light, when people don’t see it the way that this Facebook poll describes it, I suppose.

“There was frustration that our group of the industry was getting a bad rating when we’ve done so much work and improved it so much.”

He accepts conditions for contract milkers weren’t great a decade ago but said industry bodies like the Federated Farmers and DairyNZ had “done “a hell of a lot of work” since then.

He said the survey was taken with good intentions and more should be done to record the state of contract milking today.

Contract milkers experiencing abuse or manipulation could turn to their local Fed Farmers’ chairperson for help, he said.

“My phone’s always turned on to Fed Farmers’ members, so if anyone has a concern they want to raise or for us to investigate a bit further, give me a call.

Mid Canterbury Rural Support Trust chairperson Josh Dondertman said the report included “pretty confronting numbers’’.

The support trust began in Mid Canterbury in the 1990s as a disaster support service, and now connects farmers in need with financial, legal and wellbeing services.

Despite industry pushing the farmer support service, only 24.3% (67) respondents said they had used the Rural Support Trust.

Dondertman, who is also the national Trust’s deputy chairperson, said it was a “listening ear” to those in a tough spot.

“If it is a wellbeing piece, the Rural Support Trust is there.

“We’ll happily answer the phone and work through any piece they need help with, whether that's wellbeing or employment.

“We’re not bottom-of-the[1]cliff people, we’ll absolutely be there for that, but we want to be front-footing some of these conversations.”

He said researching farm owners before signing a contract with them was a smart move.

“Make sure you ring some people about them because they’ll always do a reference check on you as the contract milker.

“From a financial perspective, make sure you do your numbers and review them on a regular basis.”

Communication was key he said - both with the farm owner about expectations - and with support people about self-protection strategies.

“There’s also the RESH phone number which is funded by DairyNZ,” he said, “the rural employee support hub.

“They can link you up potentially to an employment lawyer and other resources as well.”

If you are a contract milker looking for support, contact the Rural Support Trust on 0800 787 254, Rural Employment Support on 0800 694 121, or Federated Farmers at 0800 327 646.

The full report can be found on the Sharefarming Consultants’ LinkedIn.

by Anisha Satya