Jeremy Clarkson warns farming has become ‘too risky’-Emily Bashforth and Josie Copson-Entertainment – Metro

Jeremy Clarkson doesn’t think farming is a stable business (Picture: REX)

Jeremy Clarkson has admitted the farming landscape is ‘risky’ nowadays as he gears up for the launch of Clarkson’s Farm series 3.

The former Top Gear host, 64, returns next month with his hit Amazon Prime show documenting life on Diddly Squat Farm, accompanied by his partner, Lisa Hogan, plus fan favourites Kaleb Cooper and Charlie Ireland.

Attempting to keep their farm ticking along in the countryside, the divisive TV personality has a lot to contend with, from emotional animal births to rows with activists and cops.

Speaking to Metro.co.uk and other press from Diddly Squatt before the new episodes drop, Clarkson dug deeper into the finances of farming.

He began by sharing that, while the farm is 1,000 acres (an average large-sized farm), the team actually only farms 500 acres of it.

The other half is filled with wildflower meadows, woods, and streams.

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.

Alas, Clarkson lost.

He assured that it was still a ‘fun competition’ which ran for 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.

The upcoming series of Clarkson’s Farm is emotional, to say the least (Picture: Prime Video)

Clarkson once had a competition with Kaleb Cooper (Picture: Prime Video)

‘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.

Clarkson’s Farm returns to Prime Video on May 3 (Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)

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.

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