Clarkson's Farm season 4 - Jeremy Clarkson: 'It is extremely disheartening when you have worked your socks off and nothing grows'

In the build-up to the new Prime Video series of the popular farming show on May 23, Jeremy Clarkson has revealed how challenging it was to farm without assistance from Kaleb Cooper

clock • 3 min read
Jeremy Clarkson said the latest series of Clarkson's Farm will see him farming on his own for the first time. But how did he get on?
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Jeremy Clarkson said the latest series of Clarkson's Farm will see him farming on his own for the first time. But how did he get on?

Jeremy Clarkson has revealed the challenges of running a farm without guidance from Kaleb Cooper ahead of the return of his popular farming series.

Clarkson's Farm is back for a fourth series on Prime Video in just over a week's time (May 23), and the former Top Gear host has disclosed how he has been forced to farm on his own without support, and often a telling off, from Oxfordshire young farmer Kaleb Cooper.

READ NOW: First trailer for Clarkson's Farm season four drops online

Mr Cooper had taken time away from the farm to embark on a nation-wide tour last year, 'The World According to Kaleb', to educate people about the 'realities' of farming, and why farmers are important to people's everyday lives.

Life without Kaleb

In his temporary absence, Mr Clarkson revealed he was left to plant crops at Diddly Squat Farm all on his own, which often took days, and how he coped without his trusted sidekick.

"I did do some of the farming for the first time ever, completely on my own, with Kaleb not being around," he added.

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'I was on my own'

"I had to take care of the pigs on my own. I had to take care of the cows on my own, and I had to get the crops planted on my own. It was the first time I was farming without an instructor, and we all know what that's like.

"You learn how to drive, you think, ‘Okay, I have got the hang of this', but the first time you drive a car when you do not have somebody in the seat, no matter how cocky you might be, is unnerving.

"It is like that times 1,000 when you are in a tractor."

And as audiences have seen over the course of the previous three seasons, Mr Cooper is often close by to educate, advise and often scold Mr Clarkson when he has made an error on-farm.

How did Clarkson get on without Kaleb?

Having made the errors without anyone to scold him, proving consequential with his time and the farm's resources, Mr Clarkson said:  "It is not that Kaleb sits in the tractor with me, but he's never more than a walkie talkie away.

"He's always on the farm somewhere, and he can come and help me if I get stuck.

"But when you are doing it completely on your own and, well, things had to be redone a few times. You think you should know when you have planted an entire field and it is taken days. It should not have taken days, but it did take me days. 

"You finally get it in, and then three weeks or a month later, absolutely nothing grows out of it.

Jobs in Agriculture: Could a job in farming be for you?

"That's a slow-motion accident, and it is extremely disheartening when you have worked your socks off and nothing grows. 

"Nothing. Not one single thing grew out of the soil. It does cost. It is probably £600 when you make a mistake like that, which is a lot. 

"That, in terms of farming, was my big wake up call."

Clarkson's Farm is back on Prime Video next Friday (May 23).

READ NOW: New Clarkson's Farm series to document one of the 'toughest years' for British farming

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