A CANADIAN contract harvesting business is seeking Australians to come and work over the North American harvest.
Shawn Gallagher, Gallagher’s Precision Harvesting, based in Vermillion, Alberta, said he was looking to get some young Australians over from May onwards to help man the fleet of four or five headers.
Any Australians will get to sample a large chunk of North America.
Mr Gallagher said the cropping run began in May in Texas, and worked north back home to Canada, where the headers are blown down for the last time in November, just before the Canadian winter.
“We go through around eight or nine states on average in America and three provinces in Canada.”
The team uses John Deere harvesters, all of which are fitted with GPS to provide yield mapping information for the growers.
Mr Gallagher said the team covered a wide range of crops in its travels.
In Texas and Oklahoma there is a lot of winter wheat, while in Canada they do a lot of canola and lentils.
In between, there is corn, barley and soybeans among other commodities.
He said it was an extended period of long working hours, but added that rain days, more frequent than in an Australian summer, provided opportunities for workers to get out and have a look at where they were staying.
“It is the experience of a life time for the drivers that come over.
“I’ve had many of our former employees call us later and thank us for the experience, it is hard work but very rewarding.”
