The Christchurch Men’s Prison farm is a training facility set up to support the rehabilitation and training of prisoners, and to assist them to develop positive work aptitudes, attitudes and skills for employment upon release
The farm offers prisoners the opportunity to gain Primary ITO NZQA qualifications in dairy and pork production, ATV, ATVU, tractor, chainsaw, first aid, stock handling, agri-chemicals, and fencing.
The men also gain wide-ranging practical agriculture experience on the 800 hectare farm with sheep, pigs, beef, and calf rearing, cropping, winter dairy grazing, timber processing, and a small dairy unit. The farm is rearing 350 calves and of these 100 are on a 100kg Friesian bull beef contract while the remainder will be reared on the farm to a target live weight of 600kg.
The prison farm is milking 48 cows once a day with the milk going towards rearing calves. The dairy unit itself covers 15ha of small paddocks. These are K-line irrigated and used to simulate a small dairy platform to give training on pasture management, nitrogen application, and round length decisions at various times of the year.
The dairy unit has been running for a number of years and was a basic system, which did not reflect the modern milking systems that the men would encounter in employment on a dairy farm.
In 2015, Corrections upgraded the dairy shed with the installation of a Read Industrial eight bail walk-through milking system. Although small, it is set up like any bigger dairy unit and the open shed design provides a way to monitor milking practices and ensure good animal health during training.
In 2016, milking started in July and the cows were dried off in December when the calves were weaned off milk.
In 2017 the prison farm plans to increase cow numbers to 60 and milking and calf rearing will start in the autumn and continue through to December to give more prisoners the opportunity to receive training.
Prisoners are very involved in the running of the dairy unit and have taken on specific areas of responsibility, milking or calf rearing. The men take great pride in making sure their work is well done and the animals are healthy and happy.
Over the years, many men trained on the Christchurch Men’s Prison farm have completed their training and been employed in agricultural jobs on release.
With improvements on the prison farm and increasing demand for skilled labour in the dairy sector, Corrections’ aim is for more men to gain employment in the agricultural sector and a chance at a new life away from crime.