Emily is a dairy farmer at heart. She was raised on a farm, and studied Agriculture part time in High School. When she left Year 12, she began studying to be a nurse – but she couldn’t keep away from the dairy industry!
Emily is currently studying an Advanced Diploma in Dairying and Agriculture – in addition to working on her parent’s farm. She’s studying at Dookie College – a collaboration between the National Centre for Dairy Education Australia, TAFE, and the University of Melbourne.
“The course covers how to run and manage dairy farms, agriculture, finances – everything needed for a farm.” Emily says, “You learn how to fix troughs, drive tractors, fencing, how to use chainsaws.”
A typical day on the farm, however, involves everything from milking cows, feeding cows, rounding up cows, rearing calves, cropping, putting feed out, to sorting cattle for anything from the stage of pregnancy, to whether they are ill. And the days are very full-on – with work on a dairy farm being 7 days a week.
“It’s vey full-on this time of year, because it’s going into Autumn and it’s going to rain soon. Hopefully!” says Emily.
Emily studied a Certificate II in Agriculture when she was still in High School, with a school-based apprenticeship, where she headed out to Dookie College for one week blocks – so she’s got heaps of theory to draw on in practise.
Emily chats to the NCDEA about her experience In high school: "The field trips were very motivating, it was such a totally different experience to see large corporate farms in action. Compared to our family farm of three workers, I was seeing 35 people in action and it helped me decide I definitely want to be a farm manager."
And, back on her family farm in Rosewhite, Victoria, the part Emily enjoys most in her work is milking. She loves the sense of pride from creating a product which people take such enjoyment from. She knows how much effort goes into creating a mere glass of milk. “If there was no such thing as milking, there would be no milk.”
The qualities needed to work with cattle?
Be patient, learn not to harm the cattle. If you harm them, they won’t do anything for you.
Advice?
Stick to it, because it gets better - then you can get the enjoyment out of it, and you’ll learn to like it.
