Growing Future Farmers graduate Jess Cameron with her huntaway Cam (left) and heading dog Smoke (right). Photo / Catherine Fry
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This Coast & Country News story by Catherine Fry was originally published on May 11.
Nineteen-year-old Jessica Cameron completed her two-year Growing Future Farmers (GFF) student placement course in November 2024 and secured her first farming job as an experienced shepherd on a Te Akau farm in the Waikato.
Cameron was brought up on a 2.4-hectare lifestyle block near Helensville, with “steers, sheep and goats,” and studied horticulture at school.
She described her last year at school as “a bit of a sham academically” as she was away a lot competing with the Aotearoa Waka Ama team.
“I spent a few days on my uncle’s Helensville sheep and beef farm through the Gateway programme at school, and found I really liked farming.”
“When I was looking at how to get into farming in 2022, I realised it was quite hard if you weren’t born into a farming family,” Cameron said.
“My uncle had a student from GFF, and it looked like a really good way to enter the industry and be well-trained and come out with NZQA unit standards.”
Growing Future Farmers is New Zealand’s largest farmer-led vocational workforce training programme.
It spans two years and is fee-free within the sheep, beef and deer sector.
After being matched with Alastair and Ann Reeves of Waimai Romney Stud in Te Akau as possible farmer trainers for her two-year placement, Cameron visited the farm and was offered a place.
“Waimai is a ram stud, and they also have their own breed, Chara Blacks,” she said.
“They are all about genetics, testing and selection, and that really makes your brain work, and I enjoyed being part of that.”
Alastair and Ann are very supportive of sport at high levels and willingly gave Cameron the time off to continue with waka ama.
She competed with the Aotearoa Waka Ama Team at the 2024 World Championships in Hawaii, and she manages her training using a machine in her room.
Cameron lived with three other students from Growing Future Farmers who were on other farms in the area.
Students are allocated to a student success adviser, and she described her SSA, Morgan Lilley, as her second mum, saying “she was great”.
Four days a week (32 hours), Cameron worked on the farm and also attended courses once a week covering shearing, fencing, tractor driving, equine care, ATV driving, chainsaw and dog training.
She said the curriculum covered an extensive list of courses and skills.
“At the beginning of the first year, we get a heading dog pup to train, and we get a huntaway pup halfway through the first year.
“I was fortunate enough to be trained by one of New Zealand’s top dog triallists, Leo Jecentho, who also hand-picked my pups.
“My heading dog, Smoke, has the genetics of Leo’s champion dogs, and I get to keep both my dogs when I graduate the programme.”
Fridays also included a Zoom call with Eastern Institute of Technology tutors, and completing her assessments, which Cameron admitted she sometimes had to focus on.
The programme covers costs for “our house, Wi-Fi, power and meat, and we get around $200 a week from our sponsorship money for food and anything else.
“I’ve got really good at budgeting, and we did a financial literacy course on budgeting with Rabobank.”
Cameron’s new role won’t take her out of the area where she has just spent the last two years, and she will still be close to two of her former housemates who also have their first jobs in the Te Akau area.
“I’ll be on a 1000-ha effective sheep and beef farm carrying 10,000 stock units with a 50/50 split between Romney breeding sheep and Angus steers.”
She is looking forward to starting work and applying her skills to a real farming job.
“Because of the GFF programme, I’ve got qualifications and two years of industry experience, allowing me to enter farming at a more senior level.
“I’m going to be working with a GFF student myself, so that will be really good.”
Cameron said she found the whole GFF experience supportive and enjoyable.
She is grateful to her farmer trainers, Alastair and Ann, but also to their farm manager, Tom Lilley, whom she shadowed for the two years.