From big music gigs to farming digs
At the height of his dance DJ fame, Andy Cato sold the rights to his music to fund a regenerative farm. He’s never looked back. Carly Gooch reports.
Andy Cato has been shakin’ that ass on stage for decades as one half of the electronic dance act, Groove Armada, but these days the tall, unassuming musician is creating more than just songs, he’s producing crops.
If you had asked Cato during his 20s if he could see himself as a farmer, he would have ‘‘laughed at you’’.
‘‘I can’t describe the extent to which it didn’t exist as an idea for me. I never even considered it for one second. Never had any experience of it, never had anyone in the family – interest was absolutely zero.’’
But these days the successful British musician is immersed in regenerative farming, and after many years of perseverance that pushed him to his limits, he has shared his story with other like-minded people right here in Aotearoa.
During a farewell tour celebrating 25 years of touring with friend and other half of Groove Armada, Tom Findlay, Cato fronted up to a cosy crowd of less than 30 farmers, bakers, chefs and scientists at Christchurch restaurant Gatherings to discuss his surprising second career.
His farming journey started after a gig in Kazakhstan while reading a magazine article about industrial farming. He read about ‘‘all the stuff that’s in our food’’ and what that means for our health and the environment.
‘‘I was kind of astonished. Then some journalist said in passing if you don’t like the system, don’t depend on it and that was a phrase that really stayed with me.’’
And it was from there he ‘‘went down a spectacular rabbit hole’’, which saw him take the ‘‘insane decision’’ to sell his ‘‘musician’s pension’’ to buy a farm in 2006 where he was living with his family in Gascony, France.
Following in the footsteps of Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton, he sold his publishing rights to his music, the only way he could raise the funds to buy a farm.
The aim was to grow crops according to the principles of regenerative agriculture: a holistic approach to farming that focuses on the inter-connectivity and optimal health of the ecological system as a whole. As such, regenerative farmers avoid all pesticides, herbicides and fungicides – precisely the tools that have made large-scale commercial farming possible.
It took years of trial and error battling toxic weeds, clay soil and a ‘‘tsunami of chaos’’ before he managed to grow wheat – but in a country that loves its bread, he overestimated the need for organically grown flour. Instead, he began making his own bread, seeing the farm provide from field to plate. ‘‘When I first started making bread it was because the s... was hitting the fan economically.’’
The dough paid off, selling it from the farm the flour was grown and milled at. But Cato’s eyes were on the prize of growing a community of regenerative farmers.
The ‘‘tsunami of chaos’’ eventually washed him up on dry land with an honour no other Englishman has achieved. In 2018, he was awarded the French equivalent of a knighthood, Chevalier de L’Ordre du Me´ rite Agricole, for his innovative farming approach. In the same year he set up the company Wildfarmed with two friends, George Lamb and Edd Lees.
Having returned to British soil last year, Cato has a 295-hectare farm in Oxfordshire and is championing Wildfarmed, a method of growing grains that prioritises soil health, now being adopted by farmers all over the UK. The project follows a philosophy of arable farming helping facilitate change for farmers by creating a consumer led market for food grown in regenerating landscapes.
And it’s taking off. About 50 farms are involved in the UK, following a set of protocols, including no herbicides, no pesticides, no fungicides; with 500 retail customers and 250 bakers and chefs. And while he has a medal to show for his innovative farming efforts, there has been no such honours for Groove Armada’s contribution to music – despite multiple nominations at prestigious awards, including Brit Awards, Grammys and the Billboard Music Video Awards.
Cato refers to himself as ‘‘the taller half’’ of Groove Armada, the band that came to be in the mid-1990s through a shared love of music and sport with Findlay, a friend of his girlfriend at the time.
‘‘He was very into funk and disco, and I was already DJing house music. He was really good at football, I’d never played football, but really wanted to play . . . so on Sundays, he would come round and he’d teach me a bit of football, then I would help him loop up his disco records to make disco tunes.’’
Considering themselves ‘‘late developers’’ in the music scene, Cato was 24 when the pair began making music as a way to promote parties. He says he ‘‘never gave it a thought’’ that Groove Armada would become a household name.
Though unlike many musicians who find it hard to walk down the street without being recognised, Cato says he has mostly been able to fly under the radar.
When he returns home from the duo’s farewell tour, the best mates ‘‘will still be making some music together’’, he says.
As the band’s well-known songs continue to get airtime around the world, he knows he won’t receive any of the royalties but he says he ‘‘wouldn’t change it for the world given that this whole chapter of life really opened up my slightly mad decision’’.