Maria grew up on a beef farm in Argentina and graduated from university with a Bachelor of Agricultural Engineering. She worked for a large crop farming company before coming to NZ on a working holiday, having been lucky to secure one of the 1000 working holiday visas granted to Argentinians each year.
“At 7am NZ time on a certain date, they open the visa application and everybody’s sitting at home in front of their computer. You have to refresh and refresh because the system sort of collapses with so many people trying and then if you make it through to the payment, you make it,” Maria says.
“I was with my mama when I paid and I looked at my mama and I cried and said, ‘I got it, I’m going to NZ, I can’t believe it’, because until then, you don’t know if you are going to make it or not.”
In terms of what job she might do, she wasn’t very interested in dairy farming, although she had thought of it and knew a bit about NZ dairy farming from her studies.
“We always saw NZ as the top of the dairy farming industry, so for me it was always in the back of my mind. My boss from the crop company came to NZ and worked on a dairy farm and when I told him I was coming he said ‘you really need to try dairy farming, it will blow your mind’.”
Her first job was on an apple orchard but after a month of “eight hours a day doing exactly the same thing”, she’d had enough and searched for a dairy farming job.
Fast-forward six years, she loves the industry and has climbed the career ladder so successfully that this year she was named Canterbury North Otago Dairy Manager of the Year.
Maria manages a 180ha, 660-cow farm near Ashburton for corporate farmer Dairy Holdings Ltd (DHL) and in 18 months, made big improvements, including lifting the six-week in-calf rate by 17% and halving milking time.
She says she didn’t expect to like the early starts or working in adverse weather but figured it was only a holiday job, a new experience before carrying on with her travels. She was offered a job by Scott and Helen Searle in Canterbury and moved down from the North Island, expecting to work for them for a few months.
“Then I went on holiday and they said ‘if you want to come back, you’ll still have a job’ and I came back and liked it,” she says.
“I went to Argentina and then came back again.”
The few months turned into four-and-a-half years with the Searles, though she did briefly explore her options across the Tasman.
“I wanted to go to Australia and try dairy farming there, but it’s too hot and there are too many flies,” she laughs.
Starting as a dairy assistant on a Dairy Holdings (DHL) farm at Rakaia and then moving with the Searles to their own farm in Mayfield, Maria worked her way up to a 2IC/farm manager role, under Scott’s supervision. By then, he was pushing her to look for a new opportunity.
“I was happy to work for Scott but he told me ‘you at least have to apply for three jobs as manager for you to be able to stay for another season. If you don’t show me you have applied for manager jobs, you can’t stay’,” she recalls.
“Of course it was kind of a joke, but he didn’t want me to stay in my comfort zone and I’m thankful for that.”
Taking on a managing job happened earlier than expected when Scott heard there was a farm manager’s job coming up on a DHL farm.
“It was Christmas and Scott says ‘I’ve just talked with Mick, the supervisor, and he says if you want, you can start working in two weeks’,” she says.
While Scott was confident Maria was up to the job, she wasn’t really convinced and from the outset she faced innumerable challenges.
“It was really scary and I had a lot of problems like things breaking. The first couple of months were challenging. In the first week we were scanning and the platform broke,” she says.
Then there were problems with water that threatened to flood the shed and week after week something else would go wrong.
“I was wondering what was I doing here and why did I leave Mayfield when I was so happy there, but you learn,” she says.
When Maria took on the managing role at DHL, milking was taking five hours but worked on cow flow and has halved the milking time. 2IC Carlos Masino milks while Maria operates the platform.
“I have to be honest, for the amount of work you do (in Argentina), you don’t get really good salaries, the houses are not good, the tracks to get in and out in winter you probably can’t even get out, not even the tanker can come in, you need to get the milk out with a tractor. The conditions are a lot different and that’s why I never really liked dairy,” she says.
“But NZ is beautiful and so efficient. I never thought it was going to be this good. You have awesome houses, power, internet, you’re close to town, you’re never going to get stuck on the road here because the roads are amazing, and salaries are great so I really like it.
“There is the possibility to grow, that’s something amazing for me in NZ. At home you can work and work and you might not progress at all. But here if you want to work and progress you can.”
Even with a degree in agriculture, Maria says as a woman she would have struggled to progress in farming in Argentina and that some farmers wouldn’t take her seriously.
“But here, they didn’t care that I am a woman, they gave me the opportunity,” she says.
She keeps in touch with her Latin culture by regularly catching up with fellow South Americans living in the area and when she needs time away from the farm, she’ll take her dog to the beach or go walking.
“Ashburton Lakes are one of my favourite places. There’s no phone reception there, that’s the key. I say, ‘okay, I’m off. I have no reception, good luck’,” she laughs.
“That’s the good thing, the guys are really responsible and if something happens, they deal with it. They’re really good about that, they like solving problems and fixing things.”
But for now Maria has progressed as far as she can because of delays processing her application for residency, which means she can’t take up the job DHL have offered her as a contract milker.
“You need to be a resident to be able to have a business and I have been waiting for a year-and-a-half. Immigration is so slow,” she says.
She’s spent close to $8000 on fees on an immigration consultant, but for now her career progression is on hold.
“It’s getting harder and harder at the moment, which is fine, because they want good people to stay in NZ. I have really good intentions and I want to progress and I’m stuck.
“But I guess it is what it is. I’m really grateful anyway, so I just have to be patient and hopefully one day I get it.”
In the meantime though, she appreciates every day on the farm.
“I always take a couple of minutes in the morning to see the sunrise,” she says.
“For me, it is the moment I put my feet on the earth and enjoy it because every morning is beautiful. I’m so lucky.”
Farm facts:
Owner: Dairy Holdings Ltd
Farm manager: Maria Alvarez
Location: Hinds, Canterbury
Farm Size: 180ha
Cows: 660 Kiwicross and Jersey
Production: 2021: 220,000kg MS, 1300kg MS/ha
Target: 2021-22: 220,000kg MS
