Primary Matters

MPI sends quarantine officers in to examine the buffet of every cruise ship that berths in New Zealand. They’re not assessing the quality of the food but check whole fruit isn’t on display in case visitors are tempted to slip some into their pockets and bring it ashore. The quarantine officers also have a list of other checks to make to ensure any unwanted pests and diseases don’t get the chance to disembark.

Tim Day spends his work days clambering though gorse and blackberry looking for signs of wallabies. It’s estimated there are more than a million wallabies in New Zealand quietly mowing down any new growth and causing huge damage to our forests. Tim’s part of a the effort to ensure Aotearoa becomes wallaby free.

Episode 6: If the NRL doesn’t beckon, AJ Ulugia wants to work in horticulture. He’s one of 30 students taking part in the new Akongoue programme designed to inspire Pasifika school leavers to take up careers in the sector. The students are being snapped up by local businesses and AJ found a summer job packing vegetables. He’s looking to apply for a scholarship to study horticulture at university.In this Primary Matters series we’re meeting people who are pulling on a pair of boots to kick-start a career in the primary industries

Episode 5: Eighteen-year-old Olive Williams can’t wait to learn how to operate huge, million-dollar, mechanical, tree felling machines. She left school early, not knowing what she wanted to do, but stumbled across the Generation programme that gives an introduction to the Forest and Wood industry. Olive’s currently a quality controller for a forest harvesting company.In this Primary Matters series we’re meeting people who are pulling on a pair of boots to kick-start a career in the primary industries.

The glowing sunrises and working besides dolphins pods alone would be worth getting up for every day but oyster farmer Jacob Thompson also gets a work-out on the job – and he’s paid for it.In this Primary Matters series we’re meeting people who are pulling on a pair of boots to kick-start a career in the primary industries

When he was a small child Mat Peart would stand in the paddock next to his house in the hope any tractor working there would stop and take him for a ride. Today it’s Mat behind the wheel. The young rural contractor can sometimes be found, long after the work day is done, surveying paddocks he planted weeks before. He says its hugely rewarding to be part of the food production cycle.

Even on a miserable day, getting out of bed is no problem for shepherd Ella Eades. She loves the variety of work and spending her days outside but, without a doubt, the best part of the job is working with her sometimes overly enthusiastic trio of young dogs, Chip, May and Bess.

Episode 1: Edward Roskam used to bike 15 kms home from school rather than take the bus, so he’d be able to get out onto the farm earlier. The top student shocked his teachers by leaving school early to pursue a career as a dairy farmer. In this Primary Matters series we’re meeting people who are pulling on a pair of boots to kick-start a career in the primary industries.