Jeremy Clarkson has conceded that the farming scene is ‘risky’ these days as he prepares to begin Clarkson’s Farm series 3.
The 64-year-old former Top Gear host returns next month with his successful Amazon Prime programme portraying life on Diddly Squat Farm, joined by his girlfriend Lisa Hogan and fan favourites Kaleb Cooper and Charlie Ireland.
Trying to keep their farm in the countryside running, the contentious TV personality faces a slew of challenges, including emotional animal births and clashes with environmentalists and police.
Speaking from Diddly Squatt ahead of the new series, Clarkson delved deeper into farming finances.
He continued by explaining that, while the farm is 1,000 acres (an average large-sized farm), the crew only farms 500 of them.
Wildflower meadows, woodlands, and streams make up the other half.
So, Clarkson wanted to see if money could be made ‘out of farming bits of the farm that aren’t farmed.’
This led to a ‘competition’ with fellow farmer Kaleb.
‘I said, “You do your farming, you do your wheat and your barley and your all seed rate, and I will do little bits and bobs in the woods and in the meadows and see what I can earn”,’ he revealed.
Spoiler, Clarkson lost.
He promised that it was still a ‘pleasant competition’ that lasted a whole year.
‘What we really did it for was to highlight the enormous cost that farmers face just to try and get food out of the ground,’ he explained.
‘So, ordinarily, you’d probably spend on the farm like this £40,000 in seed, fertiliser, slug pellets, and all of the diesel, and various things you need to grow food.
‘Well, last year here it was £108,000 we had to spend.’
Clarkson added: ‘It’s a bit like if you go to a casino and it’s a £2 minimum bet, you can have fun with your mates. You know, you have two quid here, two quid on the roulette table.
‘What if they make it a £500 minimum bet? You’re not going to do it. It’s too risky.’
‘And the farm is getting to that point where it’s too risky,’ he confessed.
‘You just sit there,’ Clarkson added. ‘If I invest £108,000 and then the weather’s bad, I’ve lost a lot, you know?
‘So, it’s, that’s really why we did it and I hope it worked well. I hope farmers enjoy it anyway.’
Elsewhere, Clarkson was keen to clarify that Clarkson’s Farm is ‘genuine reality television’.
‘It’s absolutely real. What you see actually happens and none of it’s planned,’ he stressed.
Comparing it to previous shows, he added: ‘I mean, The Grand Tour, everything was planned. Literally everything. You know, Richard [Hammond], move your eyebrow that much…
‘Nothing is planned on this.
‘I have no script and every single day when we meet to do filming, we’ll have a vague idea of what we need to do.
‘And I can guarantee we’ll end up doing something completely different because the weather will have changed or some fence will have fallen down or whatever it might be, and you never, ever know what you’re going into.’
Clarkson’s Farm series 3 launches globally on Prime Video on May 3.