In a recent blog I talked about James Cameron’s organic vegetable farm in New Zealand being used to grow grass for dairy cows instead.

There has been an update to this saga.

“Cameron has however defended the cattle grazing, saying while the animals would be phased off the farm, that work had been delayed by Covid-19.

"Our plan to expand the veggie operation and get the animals off basically sort of got derailed by the pandemic, because we needed a lot more labour for the veggie operation than we do to run the stock, and our access to labour from the Solomon Islands or Philippines and things like that basically just went away. 

"So we've been in a holding pattern for a year but that initiative starts soon."

“They said more cattle had not been brought onto the farm since the start of the pandemic and most had been grazed in the same areas of the farm since they bought it in 2012.”

Fascinating how you need to import humans to work on farms in rich countries.

That’s a topic for another day.

“Cameron said there had been a change towards regenerative agriculture on their farm about 18 months ago.

“Regenerative agriculture aims to improve the environment by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity - resulting in both carbon draw down and improving the water cycle.

"We can get the animals off any any time we want to, but, but we can't tell other farmers to do that unless there's a pathway. So our job is to be the precursor and figure out the pathway. So we hired this new young hotshot farm manager who is very well schooled in regenerative ag, we said 'all right, convince us, show us how this works'. 

"I was pretty sceptical that we needed it at all. And I've been convinced that it is a viable pathway that's transitional," Cameron said.”

I wonder if this is therefore just a spat between farm neighbours and their diverging visions for the future.

Also: I wonder if Cameron has a doomsday bunker under his New Zealand farm.

Asking for a friend.