Best of 2024: Nadia Lim and Carlos Bagrie on the Mike Hosking Breakfast

"110% real": New season of 'Nadia's Farm' shows the realities of Royalburn Station 

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. 

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’s business. 

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’s a marketer by trade, and while growing up in dense cities influenced Lim’s cooking, it left little space for farmwork. 

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

“What I’ve learned is that you’ve got to be someone that’s okay with not being in control, because things never, ever go your way,” Lim told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking. 

“That’s probably one of the biggest skills you kind of need to have if you’re gonna go into farming.” 

Royalburn Station sits on the Crown Terrace between Arrowtown and Wanaka, surrounded by mountains, a view Lim describes as ‘paradise’. 

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

“You don’t need one,” Bagrie said. “But if you want the very best meat, you kind of want one.” 

The pair’s 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. ‘The very best’ in every area they produce.  

“We actually won the New Zealand Food Producers Award last year for our lamb,” Lim revealed. 

Moving down from Auckland, they weren’t met with the kindest reception, rumours and gossip going around calling them ‘pretend farmers’. 

“But I think now people get it that actually, it is a proper working farm.” 

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. 

They’ve found success with their model but according to Bagrie, it’s not a model that would work for everyone, their location highly influencing their success. 

“I 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.” 

Building an agricultural powerhouse is not an easy task, but they’ve now settled into something of a rhythm. 

“We’ve been doing so many new things, this year is all just going to be about not doing anything new, just solidifying what we’ve got,” Lim told Hosking with a laugh. 

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

“You’ll see when you watch the show, there is a lot of simplification happening.” 

The show in question is the second season of Nadia’s 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. 

“I’ve done quite a bit of TV now and this show is like, unlike any other show I’ve ever done.” 

“There’s no scripting, like no makeup, no team. We just g

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Nardiger Alum and her husband Carlos Bagriy are back for
season two of Nadia's Farm. Nadia's farmers four hundred and
eightish hectare property in the Crown Range. They call it
a royal burned station. They moved from the city couple
of years aback with the view to supplying local restaurants,
showing life on the land as doable and sustainable and
quite possibly fun. Our first episode dropped last night. Nadia
Lilim Carlo's bagri with us good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, morning, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Now, first of all, skilled that you don't count because
you come from farming stock, don't you. It's true generation
so Nardier, you skills that you have now on the
land that you didn't have at the start. How much
more do you know?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Well, I think what I've learned is that you've got
to be someone that's okay with not being in control
because things never ever go your way. That would probably
be one of the biggest skills you kind of need
to have if you're going to go into farming.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Are you a good farmer? Now?

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Well, I'm little secret. I don't actually do the farming.
Carlos does the farming, and so does our general manager
and all of the farm workers. When we first started out,
I was collecting all the eggs. But that's I mean,
we had only one hundred chickens. Now we have well
almost eight thousand, so I can't collect all of them.
And I'm kind of over collecting eggs.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Now, are you really? Are you still enjoying it, thriving,
loving it, thinking it's the greatest thing you ever did.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yes, yep. You know when you wake up and you
see the view that we've got, We're surrounded by mountains,
it is so so beautiful. Yes, I could never even
move back to the city now I'm converted.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
But it is.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
I mean, like maybe financially not the best investment, but
you get the most incredible lifestyle and your kids get
to grow up in paradise.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Now, from your point of view, Carloss is everything about scale,
because you seem to have done everything large. Do you
need to do large to do well?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Almost like a lot of it comes down to value chain,
like how do you add value to the product? And
I think that's it's a combination that you need to
do both adding value to the product but also at
some level of scale. Otherwise it's just a cottage industry.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
And you know, to.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Employ staff, to have a holiday, to get off the farm,
you do need a certain volume.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Okay, talk to me about labor. How hard does it get?
Good people?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Queen's doown.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
It's challenging because of the accommodation problems. Shocking.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
That's said, Like, we've got an amazing team. So we
have bucked the trend a little bit.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
I think, Yeah, we've been like here.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah we have been. We've been lucky. So we've got
a great team. But yeah, it's been labors, labors hard.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
And how many have you got We've got thirty staff? Wow?
And and are you are where you're at at the moment.
You're as big as you will be. It is what
it is or not almost. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
So the retail stores, you know, that's only it's a
tiny little store. It's only fifty square meters and an
aratown and.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
That's that's our farm shop.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
That's a farm shop. So that's that's what that is.
Are the butcheries fully stopped.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
We have our own micro abatoire, so it's not just
a farm, it's kind of several businesses.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Do you need an abatoire?

Speaker 2 (02:54):
You don't need an abatar but if you want, if
you want like the very best meat, you kind of
want like that when it all started.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Because well it started because you probably.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Hit homekill, right, you've tried meat straight off the farm,
and why does it taste better? Like? Why is it sweeter?

Speaker 3 (03:10):
If you're going to eat them, you owe it to
them to have the best life possible and the best
in possible. That was kind of how we saw it.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Have somebody for that. But well, our labs don't leave.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Our lambs don't leave, don't leave the farm, you know.
So I'm there on D Day. They're still eating grass.
We give them some mineral salt like blocks to and then.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
And then it's just shocked.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
There's no there's no trucks or anything, so there's nores
to them, and yeah, and it makes the meat taste
a lot better. We actually won the New Zealand Food
Producers Awards last year for our how.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Much of you had to overcome with the high Nazis
in town, with all her money from television fame and
how much of there was was there.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
That not that I felt I didn't really feel any.
I mean when we first so when we moved down,
which was almost five years ago, there are a lot
of rumors going around that oh you know, oh yeah,
they've moved down here from Auckland, and you know they're
not real farmers, they're pretend farmers. Her husband's got a
couple of paddocks. We heard a lot of those roomors

(04:13):
going around. Our neighbors would say, oh, we were out
at dinner the other night and this is what we
heard the table next to us talking about. But I
think now people get at that. Actually it is a
proper working farm. You know, it's twelve hundred acres. We
do yeah, we produced enough food. We've worked it out
roughly for over twenty thousand people.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
You know, it's the number. So so hold on. So
the four eighty five hectares, so that's twelve hundred acre.
So you're using the whole farm in other words, So
I'm just confusing acres and he so. So it's a
big far four hundred and eighty five pictares, which is
what I work in. That's a big farm. That's a
lot to do. Yeah, did you specialize in anything per
se coming into this from the background.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Well, I'm a market by trade, so my back you
grew up everyone's a market.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
So certainly it was.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
It was all new. I mean like grown up on
a farm, but I'd never managed to farm, and therein
lies a big difference. There's one thing being a farm kid.
It's another thing actually when those decisions that you make
rest on your neck. And I think that's and.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
We've diversified so much. I mean, Carlos grew up on
a sheep farm, but I mean we do. We do
like eight hundred tons of grain and seas where you know,
several thousand lambs. We've got an organic market garden, We've
got eight thousand laying hens for pasture raised free and
a farm shop.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, question, why doesn't everybody? If it works, would you
argue your model works. It's a successful model.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
It works because of where we are and Eric to
be able to sell direct.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
We've got so many restaurants around us, so we can
go direct. If you're in the middle of nowhere, it
would not work.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Okay, Now, how much of this is about passion because
I'm weak on this. What I want to know is
about passion versus the bottom line. Do you do it
for the bottom line thing and whatever that may be,
or do you do it just it doesn't really matter
whether it works or not.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Look, i'd argue it's a bit of both. You know,
the passion quickly drives out.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
If there's no money.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
It has to financially be viable. And like you know,
when we stay this project, we said we want to
be sustainable. But what is sustainability. That's one of three
things in my mind, of course, is the ecological aspects
to be sustainable. You want to be green, but also
you want to be a good boss, so you want
to be sustainable with your staff. And the third one
is you know, it has to financially, it has to
stack up. Otherwise you're not financially sustainable. What's the point.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
No, that's true. So you're into weddings and corporate events
as well.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
Now, yes, well yeah, I mean we kind of figured
we needed some things that weren't food related as well.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
It turns out this bit of grass margin and that.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Have you got our wedding anniversary coming up?

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Mike, Well, you have got actually tell you what I'll
tell you. What I've got coming up is my sixtieth birthday.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Amazing, Well, we've got the place of the venue for you.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, yeah, fair enough. I was thinking about that over
the weekend. Having said all of that. It's it's it's
it's the Clarkson's farm thing, isn't it? I suppose is
what it is? Just there it is, Try it and
give it a will. How much of the show is
not real versus real? How much of reality television is
not actually reality?

Speaker 3 (07:17):
No, one of it's real.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
This show completely real.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
I can guarantee that absolutely. This show like I've done
quite a bit of TV now, and this show is
like unlike any other show I've ever done. Literally, this
is how the process works. A camera guy, one camera guy,
Scottie Lee, and one director who's generally MATCHIESM turns up, Yeah,
you know, isn't a great guy, and Lee loves his

(07:45):
farming too, and they turn up about I don't know.
Eight thirty in the morning, we have a coffee around
the what's the table of city, We rechat. We chat
for about an hour around the dining table about what's
happening on the farm today, because you never know what's
going to happen. And then we'll go out and we'll
just film it. There is no scripting, like, no makeup,

(08:08):
no no team. We just go out there and film it.
There's that's it's as natural and organic and unplanned as
it gets.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Look, I would say it's a credit to the edit. Sweet.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
That's my next question.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Makes actual credit to the Warner Brothers edit Sweet, because
to be able to go on that back and somehow
piece all these puzzles together, because it is a puzzle.
We've been filming for eighteen months, and so you end
up with stuff that we can't remember filming. I don't
even remember that storyline, and then all of a sudden.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
It's interesting something. But you going to work out. So
when you're handing out your salt lick to the sheep
that's going to die, that makes good television because you
know you can run some music behind it. Sheep's going
to die in the moment you don't know your face.
It's the sad so versus I don't know watching some
bees land on a flower and it will eventually be honey,
that's not good tv, is it?

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (08:51):
I think both av Yeah, well, if it's real and
it's interesting, and yeah, I think see. The thing is
you just don't want to shy away from from what's real,
because I mean, in my mind, I kind of feel
like a lot of the problems we've run into now
with how food gets to your plate, and a lot
of a lot of it has become taboo and people
don't want to talk about it or know about it

(09:12):
because we haven't A lot of it hasn't been you know, forefronted.
It hasn't been in front of your face. So it's
kind of important that it is. The more you hide,
the worse that that knowledge gap becomes. And that's what's
happening between cityfolk and rural folk. There's this huge knowledge
gap of how food actually gets to your plate, and

(09:33):
people are scared to know. Well, they don't want to know,
and they're turning a blind eye. But that does a
lot of damage. And then we're getting farmers going, well, gosh,
you know, you don't know anything about farming, and therefore
I'm going to be too scared to tell you what
actually goes on. And then and then the city folk
get all up in arms about stuff when they find
out what actually happens.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
And yeah, it's interesting. Do you grow microgreens?

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Not microgreens? We grow salad greens like baby something.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Do you grow ridiculo? No, you're going to get I'm
getting into ridiciation. It's goods and in dive yeah, and microgreens.
That's what I'm into.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
Where I wanted to grow, but you know there's no
market for it.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
No, no, no, I'm a marketer. I don't know. I'm
a marketer. I'm going to I'm going to get the
word out.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
We slap your face on BA.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
What about a mustard? Do you do a mustard?

Speaker 3 (10:19):
We do them in like our when we do our
cover cropping in the market garden. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
So I'm going to get into mustard as well, because
I think mustard special handmade mustards. Micro greens ridicua. Oh,
the greens are fantastic. Absolutely, But anyway, the reason for
is I've got myself a winter garden. No it's not,
it's and talking to you, it sounds pathetic because you've
got four hundred and eighty hectares and I've got a

(10:45):
glasshouse essentially that I'm growing stuff. But you're right about
the country thing and where the food is growing, where
it goes to the you know, I'm increasingly of the
view that if you can eat locally and you know,
okay like super locally, then then this is this is
a nice supercome a locov wore is that what it's
called a locovore, Loci loco wo. So you get your

(11:06):
your meat down the road, the olives over the fence.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
You give the way to do it.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yeah, you see all these crazy fancy diets you know
who listen so many of them, But eat like a locovore,
Eat as local as you can. It will be as
fresh and seasonal. You're supporting your community.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Tax all the boxes and fantastic. Will there be a
season three or we don't know. I mean, it's such
a good show.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
So there is actually another show another whether it's part two.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Of season two or.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
Season three, I don't know what they call it, but
it's coming. That will be in October.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
Fantastic. Well, lovely to see you guys, and good luck
with the beer and the whole thing in the TV
show and we'll catch up next time.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, cheers, Mike, come down.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
And Nutty Limb Carlos Begory and the show Nutty is fun.
It's back on. Well, it's everywhere TV three. It streaming
out works these days.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.