Peoples Stories

Coffs Harbour…Farms Paying $12 Per Hour?

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Coffs Harbour, New South Wales

Hi Guys we just received the following message from a member and felt obliged to share it with the community, have you encountered this? Hi I’m staying in Coffs Harbour at a very popular hostel at the minute and I just did one day at the farm and was told by everybody In my hostel that every farmer In Coffs Harbour are only paying people 12 dollars an hour and nothing more witch is very bad slave work as I just payed 160 euro to stay in the hostel and got one days work and I worked out 8 hours Read more

Fruit Picking Scam Corrigin

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Yarra Valley Wineries

  We were just scammed by someone pretending to be named “Jacob McCabe”. 10 days ago, wee saw an ad on Gumtree about a job at an herb farm in Corrigin, WA. It seemed interesting, the wage was correct and by the hour, so we decided to apply. A few hours later, I got a text from “Jacob”, the “farm manager”, telling me he had 13 positions available to start on March 9th, and asking me for my CV and details.   “Seemed Legit”   After several extremely detailed emails that seemed legit, we were told that we had the Read more

Mildura: One Big Family Backpackers Review

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mere bin one big family

I went to do my 3 months farming at the One Big Family Backpackers in Merbein just outside of Mildura. I checked their website and saw some lovely pictures of the place and was told that “Larry” would be the one running the place. I arrived to see that the place was run down and nothing like the photographs had described it to be. There were holes in the walls, loads of the showers and toilets were broken and the rooms had a serious bedbug infestation.   The Facilities   When I went into the kitchen one of the main Read more

Manjimup: The Tomato Farm Experience

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Fruit Picking Jobs in Ulverstone, Tasmania

Hi everyone, we are a group 8 backpackers with Australian Working Holiday Visas and have been working and living in Pemberton Western Australia. This was to get our 88 days specified work in a regional area for our 2nd year visa. Through the backpackers hostel in Pemberton we got a job at a tomato farm -Allstates in Manjimup-. We worked there for about 3 months and below is the story of how we fared.   Missing Payments   We tried to contact the farmer -Paul Da Silva- several times. Also the hostel owner -Troy Della Franca- tried to contact him Read more

Strawberry Sue’s Thoughts

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Strawberry Picking Caboolture

G’day Guys, Strawberry Sue, ( Sue Mazi) was kind enough to write a few words for us and give you guys an insight into the strawberry picking season in Caboolture.. Our strawberry farms are located in South East Queensland, planting starts mid March and all being well and weather permitting our strawberries are ripe for picking until mid to late May. Millions of plants are planted in our state from Bundaberg to the border of NSW. However most of the farms are clustered around the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, near Caboolture and in and around the Glasshouse Mountains. Our season goes Read more

Confessions of A Blueberry Picker – Part 3

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Blueberry Picking

Melodies Story Continues…. If you missed Part 1 or Part 2 check them out now :) I have to confess that when I first heard that the farm I was going to be working on was paid per kilo, I had high hopes for myself. I am a seasoned harvester, having had harvest jobs in corn and cucumbers during my highschool days in Canada. I believed that this experience, combined with me having spent a majority of my childhood picking various fruits for my grandmother that I would be a legend! Not so.he first day at my first farm didn’t Read more

Confessions of a Blueberry Picker – Part 2

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Confessions of a Blueberry Pickers

Melodie’s story continues… If you missed Part 1, read about it here.  Do you know how many different types of jobs there are in the blueberry world? I had no idea, not until I started vying for the few fruit picking jobs available at the beginning of the season. Don’t let that be a deterrent to you in your fruit picking endeavors; the beginning of the season is only tough because the plants aren’t quite ready for the constant attention that we so desperately want to show them. The best jobs, the most lucrative (and also the worst in terms Read more

Confessions of a Blueberry Picker

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Gillian Fruit Picking Sunset

Welcome to Coffs Harbour, New South Wales; a quaint little city set between forested hills and long stretches of sandy beaches. It also happens to be the banana capital of Australia and a short one hour drive from the biggest blueberry farm in the southern hemisphere – making it a mecca for anyone looking to extend their working holiday visa, or even just make a couple of dollars while making their way up the coast. I found myself here through a series of events that were completely unexpected but worth every unsure phone call to area farmers, and the two weeks I waited to hear Read more

Stanthorpe Gillian’s next stop

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Gillian Fruit Picking Sunset

From Warwick, my boyfriend and I headed to Stanthorpe, a slighty larger town in the picturesque “Granite Belt.” Stanthorpe has an abundance of fruit picking work. It is mostly famous for its apples and vineyards but there are plenty of vegetables and stonefruit grown here too. It is also the coolest town in Queensland – its high altitude means it can get pretty cold in winter and the town has even seen snow in the past. We met up with some friends who were staying in a caravan park on the edge of town. They were paying $130 each per Read more

Gillians First Taste of Harvest Work

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Fruit Picking Adventure with Gillian

For our first taste of harvest work, my boyfriend and I got in touch with Ready Workforce, a harvest recruitment agency based in Stanthorpe to help us find a harvest job. They quickly set us up with work on a lettuce farm just outside of Warwick, a small town about 2 hours drive south west of Brisbane, famous for its annual Rodeo. We weren’t looking forward to the early starts (4.30am!) but as we would be working split shifts (4.30-10.30am and 3.30-6.30pm) we figured we would have plenty of time in the middle of the day to enjoy ourselves in Read more