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James Cameron is normally directing billion-dollar movies or racing submersibles to the bottom of the ocean. But this week, he stood in front of a Saskatchewan crowd and announced his new passion: peas.

“In my mind, movies come and go and they’re relatively quickly forgotten, but this is something that’s lasting,” he said.

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Verdient Foods Inc., founded by Cameron and his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, just opened a facility in Vanscoy, Sask., that now ranks as the largest producer of organic pea protein in North America.

The Camerons declined to state exactly how much they had invested in the plant, but assured reporters it was “big.”

Photo by The Canadian Press/Liam Richards

“This will be a legacy for us, we also see it as just the start of a bigger vision for the development of food products,” said the director of Titanic and Avatar.

Meanwhile, an even larger pea-processing facility is underway just across the border in Manitoba. The French company Roquette is spending $400 million on building the world’s largest pea processing plant in Portage La Prairie.

“This is one of the largest private-sector investments in the history of Manitoba,” Premier Brian Pallister told a January news conference.

Another giant pea plant could soon be breaking ground in Moose Jaw, Sask. Last year, the German-owned company Canadian Protein Innovation announced plans for a $100 million pea fractionation plant.