Thoughts of a sweet potato picker

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Follow my blog with Bloglovin For the last 11 weeks I have had the pleasure of doing my regional work in Tolga, part of the Atherton Tablelands. I have been moved about from farm to farm experiencing how to pick avocados from trees (who knew they grew on trees!), plant blueberries, sort bananas and most of all I have learned the ins and outs of the production of sweet potatoes. After hanging around Cairns for 2 weeks with my 3 friends and other backpackers desperately searching for regional work, we eventually got the good to go from Tolga Country Lodge. Read more

How to get a Fruit Picking Job – A Recruiters / Employers Perspective

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  Looking for a Fruit Picking Job? Take some time to prepare your resume and understand how farmers work and think By Rodney Prestia – Agribusiness Labor Solutions   I felt compelled to sit down and write a blog, after receiving well over 230 resumes for various fruit picking jobs that our company has on offer at present. After spending the weekend and most of today going through the hundred odd emails I found myself, still struggling to find the right candidates, mostly due to the fact that farmers are often looking for people for the long term not people Read more

The Australian Working Holiday: Work versus Play!

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I am now in my 8th month in Australia and have decided not to do the 88 days regional work to get a visa extension. This decision has mostly been made by the fact that I have run out of time to find something suitable and to complete the days, but the idea of picking fruit for hours and an allergy to horses ruling out most farm work didn’t help!   Plan Your “Working” Holiday   Planning when to do the working part of your Australian working holiday can have a big impact on your year. I worked part time Read more

The Easiest Way To Your 2nd year Working Holiday Visa – guaranteed!

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Big boast I guess but it’s true. I am going to share with you the easiest and guaranteed way to get hold of your 2nd year’s working holiday visa in Australia. It’s called Wwoofing. Even if you know about Wwoofing this is still worth a read. Plenty of people don’t know about Wwoofing – which incidentally stands for willing workers on organic farms – and I’m here to tell you that not only is it fun, it’s often easy and will actually be better for you than a lot of fruit picking jobs out there. The main reason that a Read more

My Australian Experience: Ups & Downs

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So you’ve booked your flights, saved up your travel money, said your goodbyes, and your now heading on your way to Australia for a trip of a lifetime. The brochures suggest nothing but fun, new friends, famous land marks, valuable life experiences, sunshine, and great opportunities to earn whilst you travel. Is this the actual reality though? By and large, yes. Australia has not only brought me special memories of visiting some of the most fascinating places on earth with like minded people. It has also taught me valuable life lessons, from finding work in a strange new city, to Read more

Narrogin jobs scam rips off backpackers

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Con artist have once again taken advantage of working holiday makers, this time in Narrogin, Western Australia. Promising backpacker jobs / farm work the “employer” provided a bogus address and requested up front payment from the job seekers. Jobs scam are not uncommon anywhere in the world.   Working Holiday Makers Report Scam   It has been reported that many working holiday visa holders contacted Consumer Protection and the Town of Narrogin after responding to an online advertisement on the site Gumtree.   Narrogin Mayor Speaks   The “employer” used a fake name of Harris Ballard, which also shares the Read more

Table Grape Harvest Commences

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The table grape harvest starts in late October/November around towns like Emerald, North Burnett and St George amongst others. This will mean jobs a plenty for harvest workers and fruit pickers once everything is in full swing. But growers are saying that grape harvest could be set back by low grade fruit. ABC.net.au interviewed Sue Allen, who farms 15,000 grapes a year. Mrs Allan stated that the biggest problem the industry has is growers jumping the gun to enter the market and fetch the good early prices. Mrs Allan went on to say conditions were good and growers need to Read more

Know Your Rights on Your Working Holiday

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So you’re in a foreign country, everything is different and suddenly you have questions about your employment, well you’re not the only one. Over the past 2 years the Fair Work Ombudsman in Australia as received 230 complaints in the Fruit Picking Sector, as a result of these complaints $80,000 was recovered for 107 workers. Around one third of these these workers were on a “ Working Holiday Downunder”.  This is just the Fruit Picking Sector, so there’s going to be a lot more complaints and queries in the much larger sectors. From our view at Working Holiday Jobs Australia Read more

Cherries in short supply because of warm winter

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Stone Fruit is the essence of summer in Australia and on the Granite Belt that is no different. With fruit picking already under way on a few stone fruits, it is interesting to note that Cherry Park, at The Summit, was the first cherry producer in Australia to send fruit to the market this season. Cherry Park owner and operator Graham Minifie said the quirky claim to fame was a title they held most years. “We are at the highest altitude in Queensland, which gives us the advantage of having fruit a week to 10 days earlier than other parts of Read more

We rely on backpackers: Gaeta

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Orange’s horticulture industry would grind to a halt if it wasn’t for the work of backpackers picking fruit every season, according to orchardist Guy Gaeta. Mr Gaeta said in recent years the numbers of local people and travelling seasonal workers willing to slog it out in the fields picking fruit had dwindled and working holiday visa holders had picked up the slack. “If it wasn’t for backpackers most of Australia’s horticultural crops wouldn’t be picked,” he said. “They are willing to do any type of work … and they’re really trustworthy. “Years ago a lot of seasonal workers travelled around Read more