After milking 7000 cows in a 12-hour shift every day for two years, Mike Solde started thinking like a cow and looked for greener pastures.
The Filipino-born dairy farmer started his working career in Saudi Arabia and it was a tough initiation.
“In Saudi Arabia I was just milking the whole day … 7000 cows. You have to stand up walking around for 10 hours of the day,” Mike said.
“There were just seven of us in the team milking 7000 cows. We had to milk 300 cows in 25 minutes. At first, I wanted to go home but as time goes by you get used to it.”
But two years was enough, and Mike has instead found his feet and a farming system he enjoys in New Zealand and now Australia.
Mike is one of a growing platoon of Filipino workers on south-west dairy farms, along with many more farms across the nation and across the ditch.
Mike completed a six-month, government-funded certificate training program in his native Philippines in pursuit of an international career in dairy.
The only options after the six-month course are to go to Japan or Saudi Arabia, which are used by most graduates as a bridge to get to New Zealand.
Only Filipinos with agricultural science degrees can go straight to New Zealand or Australia.
Mike had been doing different types of farming, including growing bananas in the Philippines, but wanted something more.
“I looked for greener pastures — just like a cow,” he said.
But his first taste of a greener pasture was actually a hot desert climate at Almarai, on one of the biggest super farms in the world owned by the country’s king.
It’s a massive operation and consists of seven huge farms — each with 19,000 cows.
“We milked four times a day in two shifts — one in the morning and one at night,” Mike said.
“They were 12-hour shifts, with only two days off per month, and we were milking the same cows four times a day. Our farm consists of three separate milking parlours each putting through 7000 cows a day on a Rapid Exit dairy.”
The average cow produced about 24 litres a day over the four milkings.
They were living in big barns, and although they could venture outside, they tended to stay in the climate-controlled shade.
“Saudi Arabia is very hot. The cows could go out but it was a controlled temperature inside, 16 degrees, so they’d go out for a minute and come back in pretty quickly,” Mike said.
It was a very intensive farming system.
“They used to plant corn on another huge farm owned by the king, using a water irrigator, and imported grasses from places like Spain and Mexico,” Mike said.
“They were well fed — they had thousands of tonnes of grass.”
His relocation to Invercargill in New Zealand’s South Island was another eye-opener, this time having to deal with a lot of inclement cold weather and floods over his two-and-a-half years in the country.
But there were only about 600 cows and a Filipino boss, and Mike got to do a variety of jobs including tractor work, fencing, milking and feeding the cows.
In mid-2023 he came to Australia to join Ben and Kylee Bennett on their farm at Pomborneit. Mike’s wife Kris and son Zev joined him in November.
Ben said he wanted reliability and looked to the Filipino community when unable to find a local staffing solution.
“It was just Kylee and myself but we wanted to scale back and we needed a reliable person,” he said.
“There is a big Filipino community here in the Western District and we decided to tap into that.”
Ben admits the process was a “long burn”.
“The visa process took a bit of time,” he said.
“I had told Kylee it was going to take a month, but after nine months it was wearing thin. You must plan ahead if you want to hire international staff.”
He said farms struggling to find local staff should consider looking at overseas markets.
“New Zealand went from 200 Filipinos 10 years ago to well over 2000 working on farms today, along with other nationalities,” he said.
“It’s definitely growing in Australia and it’s all very positive. From what I’ve seen, they have a positive attitude, good work ethic and capacity, and empathy and exceptional handling of the stock.
“The visa process is not cheap but as everyone knows, a stable workforce is worth the money. Having a good reliable staff member cuts the stress out of it.
“Mike being able to help to reduce the burden of milking, to fix things like water leaks, fences and make sure the cows are fed and have water removes a great burden.”
The farm will calve down just under 400 this coming season. It’s a low-cost farming system with a focus on tight and easy calving and high fertility.
It is on the edge of the Stony Rises and a lot of the land has been cleared of rocks more than a decade ago. Ben has a pasture system centred on perennial lucerne, which he says suits the local land.
Mike is revelling in his third dairying country and said he had found his right niche, especially as he got to work closely with the cows.
“The job is never boring. I couldn’t cope with working in an office … I like to move and be active,” he said.
“You have to work hard and be passionate and have a good attitude and like working with the cows.”