Nadia Lim and Carols Bagrie: NZ Celebrity farming couple on their success with Royalburn Station and the second season of 'Nadia's Farm'

Published: April 3, 2024, 7:32 p.m.

It's been about five years since Nadia Lim and Carlos Bagrie took over Royalburn Station, their endeavours growing the 485-hectare farm into the agricultural powerhouse it's become.\xa0

Founded in 1887, Royalburn Station has a lengthy history filled with grains; barley, wheat, sunflower seeds, peas, and clover seeds quickly becoming the backbone of Lim and Bagrie\u2019s business.\xa0

When they bought Royalburn in 2019 neither of them had any experience with running a farm. Bagerie may have grown up on a southland sheep farm but he\u2019s a marketer by trade, and while growing up in dense cities influenced Lim\u2019s cooking, it left little space for farmwork.\xa0

Needless to say, it was a learning experience for both of them.\xa0

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve learned is that you\u2019ve got to be someone that\u2019s okay with not being in control, because things never, ever go your way,\u201d Lim told Newstalk ZB\u2019s Mike Hosking.\xa0

\u201cThat\u2019s probably one of the biggest skills you kind of need to have if you\u2019re gonna go into farming.\u201d\xa0

Royalburn Station sits on the Crown Terrace between Arrowtown and Wanaka, surrounded by mountains, a view Lim describes as \u2018paradise\u2019.\xa0

485-hectares is quite a significant amount of land but all of it is in use, Royalburn Station even having its own abattoir.\xa0

\u201cYou don\u2019t need one,\u201d Bagrie said. \u201cBut if you want the very best meat, you kind of want one.\u201d\xa0

The pair\u2019s vision for their farm is to create the most beautiful farm in the world, a quality that goes deeper than aesthetics as they aim to be a leader in regenerative, diverse, and ethical food production. \u2018The very best\u2019 in every area they produce.\xa0\xa0

\u201cWe actually won the New Zealand Food Producers Award last year for our lamb,\u201d Lim revealed.\xa0

Moving down from Auckland, they weren\u2019t met with the kindest reception, rumours and gossip going around calling them \u2018pretend farmers\u2019.\xa0

\u201cBut I think now people get it that actually, it is a proper working farm.\u201d\xa0

Bagrie and Lim have diversified the farm quite significantly over the years, producing not only grains and lamb, but also honey, free range eggs, and produce from their organic market garden.\xa0

They\u2019ve found success with their model but according to Bagrie, it\u2019s not a model that would work for everyone, their location highly influencing their success.\xa0

\u201cI think out model works because of, I mean, to be really frank, because of our ability to be able to supply those restaurants and have those direct relationships.\u201d\xa0

Building an agricultural powerhouse is not an easy task, but they\u2019ve now settled into something of a rhythm.\xa0

\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing so many new things, this year is all just going to be about not doing anything new, just solidifying what we\u2019ve got,\u201d Lim told Hosking with a laugh.\xa0

Diversifying to the extent they have has a certain amount of risk, as if they\u2019re not careful they can spread their production too thin.\xa0

\u201cYou\u2019ll see when you watch the show, there is a lot of simplification happening.\u201d\xa0

The show in question is the second season of Nadia\u2019s Farm, the first episode having premiered last night. While reality TV tends to be dramatized for entertainment purposes, Lim said that this show is 100% real.\xa0

\u201cI\u2019ve done quite a bit of TV now and this show is like, unlike any other show I\u2019ve ever done.\u201d\xa0

\u201cThere\u2019s no scripting, like no makeup, no team. We just go out there and film it,\u201d Lim revealed.\xa0

\u201cIt\u2019s as natural, and organic, and unpanned as it gets.\u201d\xa0

Bagrie and Lim don\u2019t want to shy away from the reality of farm life in this show, showing both the pleasantries and the nitty gritty.\xa0

\u201cI feel like a lot of the problems we\u2019ve run into now with how food gets to your plate, and a lot of, a lot of it has become taboo and people don\u2019t want to talk about it or know about it.\u201d\xa0

\u201cThe more you hide, the worse that knowledge gap becomes.\u201d\xa0

\u2018Nadia\u2019s Farm\u2019 is out now on ThreeNow and Three.\xa0

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