Smart Start is a practical course that happens on farm in an active learning environment. It provides basic skills on livestock handling, preparation for calving, milking and mating. It also has a strong focus on animal welfare while ensuring employees stay safe in the workplace.

With support and supervision your staff will learn to complete a range of dairy farming production tasks, safely and efficiently.

Apprentices will work alongside you (the employer) to grow their skills, they will attend local learning events and gain NZQA-recognised qualifications. An apprentice receives personal mentoring and extra support from your Primary ITO Training Adviser. They will meet with you regularly throughout the year to help you and the apprentice set goals and review progress. Employers will enjoy motivated staff and learn and grow throughout the apprenticeship too. 

Your local Primary ITO Training Adviser can talk you through the available apprenticeship options. An apprenticeship can take anywhere between 2 and 3.5 years to complete.

Your staff will learn how to safely milk animals and maintain strict cleanliness of the equipment and machinery to ensure quality milk. They will also learn to effectively manage dairy effluent.

This is a comprehensive husbandry programme where your employees will learn skills involved in the complete livestock lifecycle. From understanding the reproductive process to birth, weaning, selection and through to sale - they will be involved in every aspect of the process. They will also dig deeper into the anatomy and physiology, protecting and treating stock to maintain peak health.

Your employees will learn everything they need to know to maximise feed supply. They will understand the management of soil and pasture and the impacts of climate variation. They will also assist with feeding and water supply to meet production targets.

Your staff will learn to lead and manage all aspects of a dairy farm ensuring peak productivity of your livestock, land and machinery – all feeding into consistent, high quality milk to market. From benchmarking to maintenance, day to day management reporting to implementing health, breeding and feeding plans. This is a valuable, comprehensive course for developing leaders.

On completion of this programme your staff will be armed with deep, detailed knowledge on all aspects of production management. They'll be in a position to make sound decisions to maximise production and financial returns. They'll analyse production systems against industry benchmarks, have the knowledge to recommend improvement strategies for specific production systems and develop, implement and monitor plans for feeding, breeding and animal health.

With this programme your employees will acquire all the skills they need to run a successful agribusiness. They'll learn to develop a complete financial plan for a specific agribusiness or section of it. They'll learn to manage tax, employment and capital requirements and understand effective ways to hire and manage staff. They'll be able to develop plans for health and safety, environmental management as well as a full business plan and agribusiness report.

Visit www.primaryitodiploma.co.nz for more information.

This programme provides a solid grounding in understanding how to milk dairy stock and identifying and treating problems in livestock.

Your employees will understand what's required to maintain cleanliness and hygiene to ensure quality milk output. They'll learn about cleaning processes, plant and equipment maintenance and undertake risk analysis while developing solutions.

This is your employees' step into supervising. They'll be able to develop operating procedures to maintain milk quality and supervise milk harvesting to optimise milk quality, efficiency and yield.

This will improve your team's awareness, knowledge and skills to effectively deal with farm effluent. They will learn how to run and maintain an effluent system, understanding everyone's role in making that happen. They will see how effluent can improve pasture growth and get to grips with the legal and regulatory requirements involved with farm effluent.

This short programme with an interactive two-day workshop will provide your team with the right knowledge to effectively evaluate an effluent system, understand the legal requirements and implications of poor management and put a plan in place to manage the effluent system in your business.

This one-day interactive workshop will give your managers the skills needed to grow an effective, safe team they can rely on. They’ll learn how to motivate, train and assess team members to ensure they perform to a consistently high standard.

You must be in a role where you supervise or manage staff.

This course covers all of the essentials and more. It is the minimum requirement for high risk workplaces, and it meets the Department of Labour First Aid for Workplaces standard.

This 1-day course will revalidate your employees’ first aid skills, keeping their knowledge up to date and relevant.

This revalidation course is for those who have previously completed Comprehensive First Aid training, and whose two year certificate is due for renewal or has expired for no more than 3 months.