Jeremy Clarkson admits farm show may deter youngsters due to ‘mud, pain and sadness’

Jeremy Clarkson has admitted how his Amazon Prime Video show demonstrates how farming can be a brutal combination of “mud, pain and sadness”. The Clarkson’s Farm star, who runs Diddly Squat farm alongside girlfriend Lisa Hogan and other characters like local farmer Kaleb Cooper, has suggested the series might put young people off farming as a career.

Clarkson’s Farm, now in its third season, has proved to be a huge hit with viewers. It follows the success of other shows Jeremy has fronted including The Grand Tour, which he also filmed for Amazon Prime, and BBC One’s Top Gear before that.

Nevertheless, Jeremy believes that youngsters who have been inspired to become farmers off the back of the show are in for a rude awakening. In his latest column for The Sunday Times, Jeremy wrote: “God knows why a young person would look at my farming show and think, ‘Mmm, that’s what I want to do for a living.’

“Sure, it’s fun to whizz about at harvest time, playing with heavy machinery and drinking cider in the late summer sunshine. But for the other 50 weeks of the year it’s mostly a smorgasbord of mud, pain and sadness, and it’s all topped off with a pay packet that would disappoint a Congolese miner.”

He went on to reveal that he “regularly receive missives from teenagers asking for a job”. However, there is one key skill that the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? host believes most of them are missing.

“They all have one thing in common,” he wrote. “They haven’t learnt how to drive.

“So how are they going to get to and from the farm when it’s three in the morning and a pig is dying?

“Or it’s 10pm and we’ve just decided to plough one more field before calling it a day?”

Pondering on why today’s youth seem less motivated to learn how to drive, he then lamented: “I know that today’s young people see the car as an unnecessary expense, and in London that’s almost certainly true. But London’s doomed.”

Last year, the paper reported that barely more than one in four people aged 17 to 20 now have a full driving licence, according to the Ministry of Transport.

This is down from almost one in two young adults in 1989, with the cost of lessons, car insurance and owning a car making a huge impact during the Cost of Living crisis.

The cost of learning has consistently been named as the most important single factor, according to the National Travel Survey conducted by the Ministry of Transport.

You can read Jeremy’s full column in the latest edition of The Sunday Times.