Good life beckons student from city

Brigitte Ravera.

Growing up in urban Wellington, and attending a fairly small private girl's school, was an unusual pathway into the agricultural sector for DairyNZ Scholar, Brigitte Ravera.

Now in her third year of a Bachelor of Agricultural Science, and recently returned from a university exchange at Cornell University in the United States, Brigitte is looking towards a future in dairy farming.

For Brigitte, a love of the outdoors, opportunities to visit farms at a young age, and a school visit from a former pupil now engaged in the agricultural sector, prompted her career interest in the dairy sector. The DairyNZ Scholarship, offered to outstanding students entering their first year of an agricultural-related degree at either Massey or Lincoln Universities, provides recipients with tuition fees throughout the course of their degree, as well as vital networking opportunities and professional development within the industry.

"The dairy industry is the main sector in New Zealand agriculture that you can actually have an achievable goal of ending up with farm ownership, working your way up from the bottom." Brigitte said. "With the dairy industry you can start equity building right from the beginning, just by buying cows. Every year, if you've got a good reproductive programme that cow is producing you another cow, so it makes it really easy to build up equity."

As part of a degree at Lincoln University, each student is required to complete 39 weeks of practical experience, which Brigitte suggests is one of the most valuable components of the course content. So far, she has worked on an 800-dairy cow farm in South Canterbury, and spent five weeks working on the largest onion farm in North America, on the border of Oregon and Washington state. "At university it's split into subjects; soil science, plant science, animal science and management. The practical work shows you how it all ties together."

Brigitte also suggests that, from the perspective of a university student, demand for motivated young people to work in the industry is high, despite wider unemployment in other sectors. "Every field trip we go on, the farmers are always talking about how we keep our staff, how we get more talented young people in here. There's a bit of a stigma associated with agriculture and people might not consider it as a serious career option if they don't know much about it."