Clarkson’s Farm season three will see the arrival of a familiar face for the third series – Andy Cato – but not everyone is happy about it.
One-half of the electronic music band Groove Armada sold rights to their songs to fund a farming career, so now he’s dropping fertiliser rather than beats.
It was this decision that led to a meeting with Jeremy Clarkson, which features in the upcoming Amazon Prime Video series.
Joining Andy, 51, was former TV presenter George Lamb, 44, who runs business Wildfarmed with him. The three men who are increasingly leaving showbiz behind for farming, sat down with land advisor Charlie Ireland.
‘Basically, our current farming system destroys war on natural systems and it’s got us in a bit of a fix. Our soils have been pounded and poisoned to a point where they are in a few decades of giving up,’ Andy told the group.
‘We’ve lost 80% of our insects we can’t keep doing that. Regenerative farming is a way of farming that tries to copy natural systems.’
Instead of avoiding all chemicals like organic farming, they instead assess what each field needs so it is possible to tailor the fertilisers and grow multiple plants in one field to replicate the natural world.
The part that got Jeremy, 64, truly excited was Andy and George’s promise to buy any crops that are grown in their method for a premium price. The pair have 250 regular customers, including Marks and Spencer which also impressed Jeremy and business advisor, often referred to as Cheerful Charlie.
Despite their impressive pitch, recently appointed farm manager Kaleb Cooper needed a bit more convincing when he finally came face-to-face with Andy.
After seeing the musician planting wheat and beans on the farm, Kaleb, 25, asked: ‘Who the f**k is that?’ When Jeremy informs Kaleb he was part of Groove Armada, he hits back: ‘I don’t know what that is, why is he drilling my field?’
‘That’s p*****g me off seeing him in there,’ he said before criticising his choice of equipment.
After Jeremy warned Kaleb to ‘be nice’ and ‘not petulant like a child’, it was time for them to come face-to-face. Although, the reception was initially a bit frosty they eventually bonded over farming.
Kaleb couldn’t resist getting the last word though: ‘Was you in a band? I can tell because you’ve left your tractor running at a pound per litre.’
Andy decided to pursue a different career after reading a thought-provoking article in 2006.
‘I hadn’t really thought about food at all until I was coming back from a gig one day, picked up a newspaper article about what you might call industrial food production, and it wasn’t particularly pretty reading.
‘It had this line in it, “If you don’t like the system, don’t depend on it”,’ he recalled to the Irish Independent.
He began small by growing vegetables in his garden, where he was residing in France with wife Jo and their two children. Then, five years later, it escalated with Andy selling his songs so he could afford a 100-acre farm in Gascony, France.
While he may call it an ‘absolutely ridiculous decision, financially speaking’, he has no regrets. ‘I back it in terms of having a life of doing things which I think matter and I work with amazing people and have diverse experiences. I’m the richest person in the world.’
In 2018, he founded Wildfarmed with George after a chance meeting in Ibiza, and financier Edd Lees.
Former Big Brother’s Little Brother presenter George spoke about his own journey to this moment (via Financial Times): ‘I had this big career and I woke up one morning and I called my dad [actor Larry Lamb] and told him I was feeling unfulfilled.’
Andy first found fame with Tom Findlay in Groove Armada. The duo released a total of nine albums between 1996 and 2020 and released commercially successful singles including At the River, I See You Baby, and Superstylin’. They’ve been nominated for three Brit Awards and received three Grammy nods.
Andy relocated back to the UK in 2021 and has a National Trust farm tenancy in Oxfordshire. While Andy is kept busy with the 295 acres, Tom is now a trained CBT counsellor and works in the NHS.
Together, they performed a farewell tour in 2022.
Clarkson’s Farm series 3 launches globally on Prime Video on May 3.
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