Farm Assistant - South Otago

Looking for your next farming adventure in New Zealand? 🌿🇳🇿

We have a full-time Farm Assistant position available at our family-owned and operated dairy farm in Waipahi, South Otago.

We’re currently almost finished calving down our 640-cow herd, with just under 100 cows still to calve. We milk through a modern 60-bale rotary cowshed and run a well-set-out, grass-based system with strategic feed inputs (System 3–4).

🌱 More than just a job

This is a great opportunity for someone who wants to learn, develop and get stuck into all aspects of modern pasture-based dairy farming.

We’re passionate about finding the small changes that can make a big difference — whether that’s improving pasture utilisation, cow performance, efficiency or ultimately maximising farm profit and milk production.

We want someone who is keen to learn how a New Zealand dairy farm operates and who is interested in developing their skills and career along the way.

Who are we looking for?

Our ideal person is:

• Passionate about cows and the dairy industry
• Keen to learn and develop their farming skills
• Reliable, hardworking and takes pride in their work
• Someone with a “can-do” attitude
• A team player & can work independently or along side others
• Someone who cares about the land, animals and environment
• Not afraid to have a go and get their hands dirty
• And importantly… has a good sense of humour 

Some previous farming experience would be ideal, but we’re more interested in finding the right attitude and someone who genuinely wants to learn and progress.

✔️ We invest in our people

We’re a family-owned farm and one of the things that’s important to us is helping people learn, develop and discover what they’re good at.

We run training sessions with a neighbouring farm, covering a range of practical and relevant farming topics. Everyone on the team gets the opportunity to have a go, build their confidence and suggest topics they’d like to learn more about.

If you’re someone who wants to build your skills and potentially make dairy farming a long-term career, there’s plenty of opportunity to grow with us.

🏡 Accommodation & roster

On-farm accommodation is provided in a modern, warm and dry 2-bedroom house, shared with our other Farm Assistant, who is originally from the UK and her small but lovely dog.

The house has:

• Heat pump
• Modern facilities
• Easy-care section
• Comfortable living space

We run an 8:2 / 8:3 roster (6:1 over calving but should be on our normal roster soon), giving you a long weekend every three weeks — plenty of opportunity to get off farm and explore what Southland and Otago have to offer.

🗺️ Life in South Otago

We’re based at Waipahi, with the township of Gore close by for all your day-to-day needs.

One of the best things about the area is how much there is to explore in your time off. Within around two hours you can be in:

🏔️ Queenstown
🌿 Central Otago
🌊 The Catlins
🏙️ Dunedin
🏞️ Te Anau

Whether you’re into hiking, fishing, hunting, road trips, skiing, mountain biking or just exploring, there’s plenty to keep you busy.

🚜 What we’re looking for

We’re ideally looking for someone who can start around the beginning of October.

This is a full-time position, and if you’re applying from off shore, while we’re happy to welcome someone looking for a New Zealand farming experience, we’d especially love to find someone who sees the opportunity to stay for a few years, develop their skills and grow their career with us.

If you’re keen to work with a good team, learn more about dairy farming, get involved and have a laugh along the way, we’d love to hear from you!

Please note we are accredited 

If you’re interested please apply with a cover letter explaining a bit about yourself and a cv. Please note due to the large volume of applications we will only be in touch with those who we intend to interview. To be successful you must be able to pass a drug test & a police check may be conducted.