('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME) - The best of New Zealand's rural heartland... Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 - Taming this land in Samoa was a daunting prospect. - At first, I said no, I didn't want to come. But eight years later, we're still here. - Now, they're sharing the bounty. - All the food that you'll be having all comes off the farm. - Melt in your mouth, just like butter. - Look at that. (PEACEFUL MUSIC) (BIRDS CHIRP) - SHOUTS: Come on. - Come on. - The island of Savai'i in Samoa is home for Ruth Aicken and her husband, Kelvin Bell. This is Ruth's family land. - My parents retired to New Zealand back in '92, after the big cyclone. - Come on. Come on. - But at the hospital when Papa got sick, he was very anxious and upset that no one was here, to use all these lands that he worked so hard for. - Come on. - And I had no intentions of coming back, but something hit me an hour before he died, so I quietly promised him, I will come back to Samoa. And here I am. - Let them come in... - Kelvin grew up on a farm in Waikato, but was overwhelmed by his first visit to this farm. - Ruth took me round to the old houses ` they were pretty run-down, and the land was all bush. I just thought, 'Wow, this is beyond what we can handle. We'll never do this.' Went back to work and something kept tapping me on the shoulder. We came back again and had a good look and we stayed a bit longer ` got a vibe for the place, got a feeling for it, and then we both decided it was either now or never. We'll give it a go. We'll let these ones out. Come on. - They tried farming a few things before settling on cattle. - We originally were growing taro, so we were clearing the secondary bush. And then the second crop that we came through to plant, I noticed there was grass, so we slashed it and planted our crops. And then the third time we came through, the grass had really established itself. Ruth and I thought, 'Why are we slashing it? We should be grazing it.' So we put the word out, looking for cattle. They're a tough animal. There hasn't been a vet on Savai'i Island ` not a permanent one ` for years. Probably 50, 60, 80 years. So any cattle that have struggled to survive here or having calving problems, basically have just died out. We've ended up with this really strong breed of cow. I basically call them a super cow, and you don't have to do anything. Long as you give them the food, the water that they need, they just take care of themselves, and it's maintenance-free farming. - Manoa Faamatala is Kelvin's farm helper, and one of their regular jobs is keeping the jungle at bay. - All right, man? - Yep. - Good, good. We're just slashing back the bush, just so it doesn't take over the fence. Then I lose my power, then my cattle get out. Originally, the whole farm looked like what you see on my right-hand side. A lot of this weed is introduced weed. The locals call it 'a mile a minute'. The rumour is the Americans bought it here for camouflage in the Second World War. The Americans left, they left their weeds behind, and, yeah, we have to deal with it. The Soweto, or the big machete, is the most convenient, easiest way to do it, because you can cover a lot of area, and we're a very rocky terrain. Not too bad, Manoa. Getting on top of it now. - Yep. - To me, it's like playing a good game of golf or tennis and aerobics all in one, so it's quite good. - It's also a chance to find any fences that need fixing. - All righty. Grab our knife and we'll head on up, eh? You're constantly repairing things, just like any farm. But I'm lucky with having Manoa. He's learning how it all works. Hopefully one day I can say, 'Go and repair the fence,' and I can stay in the hut and have a cup of tea. (CHUCKLES LIGHTLY) Carry that to the gate, and I'll meet you up there, eh. And then we'll run a new wire out. - Yep. - OK. All good? - OK. - You've gotta be a jack of all trades, really. What I'm doing here is reusing old wire we've used in the past, and we don't like to waste anything cos we've got to import it from overseas. So anything that we pull down, we roll up and reuse again. Trying to be a tidy Kiwi. Can you just pull it a bit more, Manoa, please? The problem I have is the ants attack it. They must sense the electricity running through the wire, and for some reason they come up and attack around the insulator. And over a period of time, it corrodes and rusts through, and we have to replace the fence. I don't like killing the ants cos they're part of our ecosystem, so I just put up with it. And it's not hard work, really. That's good enough. (GRUNTS) - Yep. - OK, mate. We'll trim those off. There we go, Manoa. Good little patch-up job. - Yep. - Seki. (SOFT COUNTRY MUSIC) - Ruth and Kelvin run a homestay in the village of Fa'aala, a short drive from the farm. (BUS HORN HONKS) Florence's Place is named for Ruth's late sister, and she says it's a unique offering on Savai'i. - We have beach fales, we have resorts, we have hotels, but no one has a setting like we have, which is open fale. Talofa. - MAN: Hi. - Welcome, everyone. Welcome to Florence's Place. - Talofa. Hi. - Have you had a good ride around Savai'i? - It's been brilliant. - Just bring your bag. Whatever you can carry. It's like a marae setup, but you have your own bed and shared bathrooms. And this big table here, we all sit together as a family, and we have dinner and a chat. All the food that you'll be having, like your breakfast and your dinner, all comes off the farm. Whatever I don't have, I source it from the locals, to support them. - Moe Pilato is the chef here. - Beautiful topside roast, slow cooked for four or five hours. And then Ruth has the vegetables available, which are... - ...pumpkin, carrots, Samoan cabbage... - ...lau pele... - ...and breadfruit and coconut cream. - Ooh. - WOMAN: Thank you. - And visitors also get to enjoy a taste of island life on Kelvin's farm tours. - OK, let's rock and roll. - ALL: # You will always hear me singing a song. # Show me the way to go home. # - The Alofaaga Blowholes are one of the sights that draw visitors to Savai'i, Samoa's biggest island. Not far from here, New Zealander Kelvin Bell is farming cattle on his wife's family land. - I like to move them every day because it just keeps the cover on the ground... Come on. ...and the cattle enjoy being moved, and it's good for me because I can keep a tab on what cows are calving, when they're calving, how many I've got, and if any are sick, I can just get into it and I can keep on top of everything. I don't drench. I don't have to. The cows don't have worms. Come on. We're tropical, so there's not a lot of protein in the grass that grows, so we're always looking at other ways to get the protein to them. We're introducing a new crop called moringa. You don't have to plough it in, you just seed it and it grows, and every 30 to 40 days you can harvest it. And it's a high protein... It's got magnesium. It's got all the minerals that the cows need or they may be lacking in the tropical grass. - With Samoa's hot climate, water and shade are vital. - We get round about 5.9m of rain a year, so we harvest all that water and put it in the storage tanks. And then from there, gravity feeds down to all the troughs we've got in the paddocks. In every block I've left a little patch of bush with big trees, so on those really hot days the cattle can go and get out of the heat. And I've noticed, if the cows are in a block where there's not a lot of cover, they consume a lot more water. (SERENE MUSIC) - Farming here requires a lot of DIY, and that includes making your own fence posts. - OK, Manoa, I'll put this one here. We can't get H5 tanalised-treated posts here in Samoa. And because of our wet, humid conditions, anything that's untreated just doesn't last very long. Yep, put that in there, Manoa. Beautiful. Put a little wedge in here. That's it. Beautiful. Ugh! - Kelvin googled how to make a concrete post. - The first couple we put together were a bit of a disaster, but we fine tuned it and we got it right. They're not super strong. Like, you really couldn't restrain an eight wire fence up. Put one of these in. We're limited to how deep we can dig into the ground here. We have rocks, so sometimes we can only go down you know, half a foot. So, a big strain here is not really worth it. - Kelvin's keen to share his knowledge. - We're thinking of making a video and putting it on an agriculture show here in Samoa, just to help the locals out. And if we can help farmers to get their basic infrastructure in, it'll be a good thing. And that is one post finished. I'll give it a gentle tap with a hammer. There we go. Bob's your uncle and it's all done. - Every few weeks, Kelvin slaughters a cattle beast and hangs it in the chiller to age, drawing on his training as a butcher. - I did it for 10 or 12 years, and I even had my own butcher shop. One day I just wanted a change, so I got out of it, went engineering, welding and all that sort of thing and ended up overseas. And now I've done the complete circle and I'm back doing it again. - When the meat's ready for processing, the kitchen at Florence's Place gets a makeover. - It's a long day because we've normally got guests in the morning, so we do the breakfast, and we get that out of the way, and then we convert our little kitchen into a mini-butcher shop. - Chef Moe's ready to go. - She does all the packing and all the trimming for me. And without Moe I couldn't do it. She's my right-hand girl, yeah. It's great. You get all your prime cuts ` you get all your eye fillets, your T-Bones, your Scotch fillets ` so all your good frying steaks, and then you've got your lower cuts, which are your blade steaks and things like that. You have your roasts. This is a chuck roast, just been boned out on the rail. So, we'll trim it out. We'll take all the excess fat off, all the excess gristle, and we're left with a nice square chuck roast. - Most of the meat is served to the guests at Florence's Place. Kelvin's wife, Ruth, is helping with the mincing today. - We make burgers. We cook chop suey with it as well, and savoury mince for breakfast in the morning for our guests. And spaghetti bolognese is our favourite. Everybody loves our spaghetti bolognese. - (WHISTLES TUNEFULLY) This is this premium Scotch fillet. Got a beautiful bit of fat in the centre. The colour ` unbelievable. - Kelvin reckons the key to great taste in his meat is animal welfare. - From the time the calf was born to when it's slaughtered, keeping everything spotty dog gives you a good product at the end of the day. That's just beautiful meat. You'll never get meat anywhere else better than this. And, yeah, it should eat like butter. Beautiful. (UPBEAT MUSIC) - And guests at Florence's Place don't just get to savour the meat. They can also visit the farm. Kelvin likes sharing his enjoyment of life on Savai'i. - ...whole farm was in taro. I just like being able to make my own choices and decisions. If I want to build a shed, I can build a shed. I don't have to get all sorts of permits and things. So you got that freedom to do things. (BATS SQUEAL) See the bats up there? You'll see the bats flying around. See them? - Oh yeah. - Yeah. - Oh, gosh. Look at the size of the thing. - Yeah. And the weather is the biggest plus for me. I get up in the morning and it's 28, 29 degrees. You can't get any better than that, and if it gets too hot you just go and have a sleep under a tree, so it's brilliant, you know. So, this is a typical taro plantation over here. So, underneath this big pod here, there'll be a big bulb. To replant your crop again, all you have to do is you just pull this little fella here off, like that. All those roots ` you'll just trim it like that. Then you'll whack their leaves off like that. And then when you go to plant, all you do is just... rip the ground open, like so. You make a hole and you just soften it. Then you poke it in there, and that's it. - WOMAN: Wow. - You can grow all year round. That's why it's so popular here. OK, let's rock and roll. I'll put the back up so nobody rolls off the back. OK. - ALL: # ...way to go home. (TRUCK HORN TOOTS) # I'm tired and I wanna go to bed. # You will always hear me singing a song... # - And tomorrow, Kelvin's truck will be on the road with a very different crew. (SERENE MUSIC) - Ferries are the main transport to and from the island of Savai'i in Samoa. A lot of the tools and equipment needed to farm here have to be brought in from overseas. Ruth Aicken and Kelvin Bell employ schoolboys on their cattle farm on the weekends. Ruth says older workers are in scarce supply. - KELVIN: Where the other boys? - Go to Salelologa. - RUTH: Jessie! - Gone to Salelologa. Oh, OK. - He's our best worker, this one. - Sole. - You OK, Jess? - A lot of our youth have gone overseas to work, so we can't get the labour that we need here, because all the guys ` the strong boys of our country ` have all left. - Just stay close together, fellas, and clean up. - Many of them are working on orchards in New Zealand and Australia. - I don't blame them because the money can sustain them. However, I still think that they should do an industry where they can come back to Samoa, and use their knowledge. I mean, there's no apples here, so what are they going to do when they come back? - Kelvin's been clearing this block for a couple of years now. - We just take the top of all the fern off, and trying to get the grass to creep amongst the fern, and then establish itself and get going and... Hopefully in a couple of years, we should have good pasture up here and be able to run a few extra head of cattle. Watch out for bees. It does have high value... food in it. It's like a legume that crawls everywhere. And the cattle will push in and get that, which open it up for us to slash it. And then the legume will be looking for something to grow on, so it'll start crawling over the top of the newly cut fern. The stock'll go for the legume and squash the fern down and the grass should come through. I'm not a great fan of using lots of sprays, so I'd rather bring in the boys to do the slashing. I pay them per day, and then they can take that money home and they can give it to their parents, and that's money for their schoolbooks, their pencils and their bus money. I've offered them boots. They've actually got boots, but they prefer not to wear them. And I think it's because they can feel where they are on the ground. It's very rocky here, so your feet roll. They get caught up in gumboots. I learn a lot from them. I see the skill that they've got, what they can do with a knife, and how they never have an accident. They never cut themselves. It's just phenomenal. Yeah, I wish I had 500 more of them. (LAUGHS) (PEACEFUL MUSIC) - Kelvin keeps a close eye on his cattle numbers. - I'm actually` I've got too many breeding cows now. And the farmer down the road, he wants more breeding cattle, so he's buying them off me. Come on, girls. Come on. Up you go. Now` Whoa. I want this one. Come on, you. You get back up. I don't want to carry them through the winter months, because the grass slows down, the soil temperature gets colder, so the grass steadies up, so... it's good for me to lighten off a few of my young heifers that are eating a lot of grass, so that leaves a bit more extra grass for the older cows for the following season's breeding cycle. - Kelvin found his 64-year-old tractor for sale in Cambridge. - I was in New Zealand at the time, so we went and had a look at it. It didn't go. Bought it off this beautiful old lady, and she was happy to see it go to a nice retirement farm. It was bright red, like a Massey Ferguson, but I wanted it a bit different, so I painted it yellow and the family have nicknamed it 'Buttercup'. MANOA: Up, up, up. - The trailer is another of Kelvin's creations. - It took me nearly a year to build, inbetween doing other jobs at night and things like that. It took a little bit of working out and balancing, but we bought all the good stuff for it. We bought it all from New Zealand and we fabricated it up in my shed. Just travels so nicely, and the cows love hopping in it. - The trailer comes and goes between Kelvin's farm and a nearby property. - It's really handy. Now we can transport our own stock. - Richard Wetzel is an old friend. - How are ya, mate? - Hey, mate. How's it going? All right? - All good. - That's the way. That's the way. - Hello. - (SPEAKS SAMOAN) - (KISSES) - Here they are. There are four of them in here. One of them's a little bit bigger than the others ` a little bit older, but... - Yep. - ...she'll do the trick. She should be in calf, actually. And the others are all empty, but they're all heifers. - Yeah, they look good, eh? - Yeah. - Nice coats on 'em. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're... should come up quite nice. - Add to the herd. Can you back it up under the mango? - Yep. Yeah, I can do anything for you, mate. - And then we'll swap it over there. - Ruth and Kelvin won't be leaving Savai'i any time soon. - I can see myself, sort of, fading out here. When I'm doing things, and I'm working with the village and the boys, it's like when I grew up ` there was a community there. No one has a lot of money, but you all pitch in and you work together, and you have fun, and... keep it simple, and life is really nice. - Samoa is... home. I've always said that you can take a girl out of Samoa, but you can't take Samoa out of the girl. The most important part for me is utilising the land that my father worked so hard for, and I'm hoping my children will have some part of it, and if they can't, then the grandchildren, so they can take it to the next level, whatever that may be. Remember, we had one in the... - Yeah, what happened to that? - You cut it. - Did we? I've done my little bit, and if the kids wanna come in and try something, do something, we'll be behind them and support it. We got it handed it to us, so I'd just like to hand it on to them and life goes on. - Next time ` - These vines are like triffids, and they grow all summer long. - They're producing new vines to plant in vineyards. - We've only got a very short window that those plants can grow. - And the family business is moving to the next generation. - It wasn't something he loved as a child, and I didn't expect him back, so it's been an added bonus. - That's next time on Hyundai Country Calendar.