Jeremy Clarkson is an absolute God in the car world. Having been the main man on Top Gear and the Grand Tour for many years, he has decided to retire from cars for the meanwhile and has decided to run his own farm. Now, this isn’t anything new for Clarkson. He has actually owned the farm since 2008, and the reason why he has started to run the farm was that the man running it previously had retired.
The farm that Clarkson owns is based in a place called Chipping Norton which is in Oxfordshire, UK. It is a 1000 acre farm, which is around 756 football (soccer) fields. It’s huge which makes it very hard to maintain. Clarkson has never ever run a farm before so, he is completely out of his depth. The closest he’s done to running a farm was a challenge on Top Gear in series 9 when they tried to grow their own petrol. There, things were not taken very seriously at all but in this new series, things are massively different.
As we all know, the Top Gear trio has pretty much gone their separate ways. They will make around two to three more Grand Tour episodes and that’s it. James May now has a cooking and travel show, Richard Hammond has a new survival show and a car restoration show, and Clarkson as well all know has a farm show.
The whole series was filmed across one year, and during that time period, many events happened. From terrible weather to Covid, Clarkson’s first year of farming was not as stable as one would hope for. In fact, at the end of it all, he made a profit of just £144. Now, he did make many mistakes that year which led to that number, but at least he made a profit. Some farmers in fact during the same time period made a loss or so.
So, why should a car enthusiast watch Clarkson’s Farm then? After all, it’s hardly about cars!
Surprisingly Good.
Now, I’m not having a dig at Clarkson, etc here at all. The reason why I am saying this is because farm TV shows in the past such as Countryfile have been boring. When people first heard that Clarkson was going to make a TV show about being a farmer, a lot of people were confused. What on earth would he do on there? Would it just be him falling over and making a mess of everything?
In the past, Clarkson has mainly been a bit silly on TV. He is the messy one of the trio. The loud one. The one you would least expect to ever run a farm. However, if you are a true Clarkson fan you would know that actually, this isn’t the case. In around 2007, he made a TV documentary called The Greatest Raid of All Time, which was about one of the scariest operations in WW2 which involved the allies raiding the German Occupied St Nazaire dry dock in France.
That documentary got many high reviews worldwide and his previous WW2 series, known as War Stories back in 2003 received again high reviews. Clarkson then isn’t just a car man at all. He is a lot smarter and better than you think. Production of Clarkson’s farm started just a few months after the ending of The Grand Tour, and it was quite obvious from the start that this wouldn’t be filmed in just a few weeks or so. This was going to become Clarkson’s main job.
Things were hard. There were some months that they filmed loads and some that they didn’t. Everything was real. The deadlines were real. The plants, crops, etc were all real. Clarkson’s farm shop was real and is still open today. This is probably the least scripted TV show right now, less scripted than the news (though that’s not hard).
What made things brilliant about this show, was Clarkson’s colleagues. The first man was a 21-year-old father, Kaleb Cooper, who is a farming contractor that Clarkson hired. he does most of the work as well as teaching and telling Clarkson what to do. He is a very funny chap who loves the countryside to bits. In one episode he did go to London, and he hated it. Further facts about him, are that he wants to try every single hairstyle before he goes bald. He also drives his dream car, the Nissan 350Z.
Then, there is Gerald Cooper who is not related to Kaleb. Another country born and bred he assists Clarkson on the farm, and you literally cannot understand a word he says due to his dialect. He’s a very soft, nice guy who has quickly become a fan favorite. After Gerald is Charles Ireland, or “Cheerful Charlie” as Clarkson likes to call him. He’s a land agent who has a degree in agriculture from Nottingham University. His job is essentially to “mentor” Clarkson into running the farm profitably as well as helping him out with accounting and regulations.
Clarkson’s girlfriend, Lisa Hogan also joins the crew. She’s an Irish woman from Dublin who we believe was an actor or model. We get to see their private life within the show as she helps him out with running the farm, most particularly the farm shop.
It Shows Just How Hard The Agriculture Industry Is
Agriculture. It’s a dying breed, especially in the UK. The competition is huge, the stakes are high and there are many things to go wrong. That’s before all of the issues with suppliers, buyers, etc. The whole industry has more negative points than plus points. However, it is vital for not just business but for life. Without farmers, we probably wouldn’t be alive.
People think that agriculture nowadays is easier. They think that it’s all automated and that the days of the farmer going from 5 am till 10 pm are gone. TV shows like Countryfile etc show farming as quite a laid-back job. There are issues but it’s all mainly smiles or so. watch Clarkson’s farm and you will realize just how hard farming is. It’s made many viewers feel more applicative of those working in the agriculture industry.
As Clarkson said in an interview, you “have to be a scientist, a businessman, a midwife, etc all at the same time.” Farming isn’t just planting seeds here and there. It involves a lot of skills and all of these skills need to be high level. For example, the Lamborghini tractor Clarkson used was extremely complex, and worse still, all the instructions were in German since it was a German truck.
Then there were all of the problems. Things like the weather which was a major issue. Then there was Covid, Clarkson’s lack of knowledge, etc. It’s all pretty hard work and at the end of it, all Clarkson made was as mentioned earlier, £144. He tried everything. From sheep to crops. He may have made more in a normal year, who knows?
We hope a second series comes along and there are some sources that say a second series could come. It’s likely to due to the reviews and the fact that Clarkson loves running the farm.