Groove Armada’s Andy Cato says farming needs to be ‘cool’

Andy Cato, DJ and one half of electronic music group Groove Armada, has told the BBC he is doing his best to make farming “cool” as he promotes regenerative practices as the tenant of a National Trust farm.

At the farm on the Wiltshire-Oxfordshire border he said: “We need to live in a world where farming and food is cool and aspirational.”

Cato’s style of farming involves trying to reverse biodiversity loss while still growing food and making it economically viable.

He said it had not come without problems, calling over a decade of farming in France prior to the current farm a “humbling” experience.

“There are a lot of days when I think I’m just going to play records on the beach in Ibiza, someone else can sort this out.

“What keeps me going is that we have a solution here to so many of the existing problems that we face – from health, to climate, to biodiversity. Once you’ve seen its potential, you can’t really walk away from it,” he explained.

Regenerative farming aims to reintroduce microbes, nutrients and carbon back into the soil.

One way of doing this includes planting different crops side by side and also sewing “cover” crops, which protect the soil between harvests to retain organic content.

The star’s journey into farming started when he was coming back from a gig and was handed a leaflet discussing the modern food system.

After going down a “rabbit hole” Cato took a big risk – selling his music publishing rights and buying a farm in France.

“Everything went completely wrong – a very humbling experience. [It was] a decade and a half long, often a quite painful journey of experimentation.

“It left an indelible mark, not only on how hard farming is, but how lonely it is,” he said, adding there are big decisions to be made with just one opportunity a year to “set your course”.

Cato has now created a group of regenerative farmers called Wildfarmed.

He explained there was often a thought that “if you want more nature, you need less food”, but does not see that this has to be case.

“We live in a world where it’s a £7 pint and a £1 loaf – why are we valuing those things so differently?”

Despite the challenges, Cato said: “There’s no more fulfilling, exciting or intellectually challenging way to spend your time than combining nature and food production.”

That is after he has spent much of his life “standing on some of the world’s biggest stages and having a great time”.