City girl Nadia Lim admits that bringing three children up on a farm was more husband Carlos Bagrie’s dream than her own – but it’s working out just fine.
Bagrie and Lim have been on the 485-hectare Crown Range, Royalburn Station for about five years. The work, stock, staff and headlines have escalated in that time.
While Lim already had celebrity chef status, Bagrie, a Southlander, was an unknown quantity until the release of TV3’s Nadia’s Farm. The couple now have all eyes on their “farming journey”, as Lim calls it, from the broad audience that is rural and urban New Zealand.
“What we want to do with whatever voice we have is to try and bridge that gap between rural and urban audiences,” she said.
That gap can often be a canyon when it comes to differences in opinion, whether it be around the environment, climate or veganism. Lim puts this down to “people cannot know what they don’t know” – in other words, education in farming is lacking.
“I’d say pretty much the majority of Kiwis had some direct link two generations ago to the land. Whether they grew up on a farm, or their aunty or uncles or grandparents were farmers, but these days it is more rare than it is common and because of that we are losing touch with how our food is actually grown, raised, produced and gets to our plates.”
“Because that knowledge is being lost at the farm gate, there is more misunderstanding, more misinformation. That has added some fuel to these arguments.”
Lim said there was nothing quite like her own quick-fire education by plummeting into farming with Bagrie, coming from a city background in Auckland and Malaysia. Bagrie, who grew up on a farm in eastern Southland, had forewarned Lim on their second date he’d one day return to the land to go farming.
Lim’s stardom happened first, starting with MasterChef, then My Food Bag, then Dancing with the Stars, other TV shows and bestselling cookbooks. Bagrie waited patiently for his. Although he had grown up on a farm, he had spent his professional life in Auckland, working in marketing.
Half a decade into the job she and Bagrie are like any good partnership, arguing black and blue on how things should be done.
“I feel like I can put my hand up and say ‘I get it’, because I have had a foot in both camps. Carlos and I used to have arguments about why things are done in a certain way, me coming from a towny background and him a rural background. I didn’t really get it until I was witnessing things firsthand.”
The fact that Lim killed and ate her own farm rooster all in the name of television earned her a solid critic.
“One woman keeps sending me messages. She keeps saying I am evil because I killed and ate one of my roosters.”
The more common response from the Kiwi rural community has been positive and helpful.
“Carlos and I are so grateful to the rural community because we have found other industries can be a bit closed, but everyone in the farming game has been welcoming and willing to share their knowledge and wanting to see us succeed.
“The common thread is everyone is willing to share and be open with their experiences with their failures and successes.”
While on the face of it this ‘dream life’ of television, bestselling cookbooks, paid speaking engagements and family life (three children, Bodhi, River and Arlo) – it has challenges, which the couple have put firmly in front of the public eye.
“We haven’t shied away from showing any disasters. We are still dealing with the chicken coop disaster 12 months on, that hasn’t been resolved. There is a lot of money lost that has to be recouped.”
As shown on the show, the couple commissioned new “bespoke built” chicken houses from Australia to replace the existing ones, but mishandling caused a break, which hasn’t yet been fixed.
“We’ve got a massive mortgage to pay on this farm. It is not like you can just make a mistake and just shrug it off and move on to the next thing. At the end of the day, you’ve got to keep the mortgage being paid and keep the bank happy.
“Farming is not for the faint hearted and definitely not for someone who wants to have their weekends off.”
Lim said farming has already changed her outlook somewhat.
“Being a farmer, you have to learn how to be okay with not being in control, because things are more often than not out of your control. However, I think learning to deal with that is a very useful skill, not just with farming, but with life in general.”
Lim, who has no shortage of accolades, said there is one thing she enjoys more than food, and that’s mastering the new.
“Learning, it is my favourite thing out of anything. It is why I have loved the farming journey I have absolutely loved and thrived on it.
“I feel like farming is an area where even if you have been doing it for 50 years you would still be learning. It’s always changing and there is something very beautiful in that and it keeps it interesting.”
That’s precisely what makes Lim a top cook too. She is constantly trying new things, keeping it fresh and experimenting with new ingredients.
She said her mother Julie was an “okay” cook, but it was her late father Ken’s experimental panache, as well as the melting pot of her Malaysian upbringing, that grew her curiosity in the kitchen.
“You hear of all these celebrity chefs with these amazing families with a nana who baked everything from scratch and made these incredible meals that had been passed down from generations. I didn’t grow up in a family like that, I wish I could tell that story.
“Malaysia is an amazing melting pot of cultures. You’ve got Malaysian, Indian, Chinese Portuguese, Thai, Vietnamese, everything. Life revolves around food there. I was exposed to so many different food cultures from a young age and I have been very lucky with that.”
Lim was always going to be a foodie, although she didn’t expect all this. Farming would seem the natural and perfect place to combine her love of food and education.
The farm grows close to 1000 tonnes of crops annually, has more than 8000 chickens, about 5000 lambs, a dozen cattle, a few pet goats and working dogs. Lim has a playground of ingredients to work with, with or without her rooster.
“My philosophy has always been the same. Eat more from the ground, sea and sky and less from the factories.”
Given that she’s a driven businesswoman, there must be a new project under way for Lim?
“That used to be my ethos, ‘What am I going to achieve next?’ But now I am trying to focus more on enjoying what have we have achieved to date and being conscious the kids are only this young for a short period of time.
“Success is often measured by financial means and achievements … but really at the end of the day the most successful people are the ones who know how to be happy.”
In Focus Podcast: Full Show | 26 April
Senior reporter Neal Wallace has been looking at the sheep sector and reporting on how farmers, processors, marketers and lawmakers are facing the challenges.
AgriHQ senior analyst Suz Bremner also joins the conversation. Not many people know more about what’s going on around the sale yards than Suz and as a sheep and beef farmer herself she’s got a first-hand perspective on how things are faring in the high country.
As usual we’ll check in with Federated Farmers – this week sharefarmer chair Sam Ebbett has some advice on how to avoid contract disputes over pasture covers.
