Artificial breeding technician Gisela Bach is just like the farmers she works with. She doesn't want to be doing anything else.
Gisela, who is originally from Spain, is a trained vet and works as an AB technician in the Waihi area and on the Coromandel Peninsula in October and November every year.
She could sit a few more exams which would enable her to practice as a vet in New Zealand but says she's very happy dairy farming with her partner near Waihi and inseminating cows at mating time.
"Most of the farmers I go to are owner-operators so I really get to know the people who work there because I see them year after year and they talk to me about their children and grandchildren and their holidays. All the farmers I deal with, they all... love their animals and love what they do. They don't want to be doing anything else."
Gisela has been living in New Zealand for nine years and believes New Zealand should promote the way it farms and push the fact our cattle are grass-fed.
"I think [New Zealand beef] is quite a unique product and there would be a lot of people really happy to pay that extra to have the grass-fed factor in it," she says.
"I mean people pay extra for free-range eggs so the way that we farm here it's free-range... it's just not been labelled like that but that's what it is. The fact that the animals are outside most of the time, I think that most New Zealanders they don't realise how privileged that is. It's really rare... It's beautiful.
