Jeremy Clarkson has opened up about the less glamorous side of running Diddly Squat farm, describing some duties as “unpleasant jobs”.
Writing in the Sun, the former Top Gear presenter said: “Some jobs on the farm are unpleasant. Sexing rabbits is annoyingly difficult, and disposing of dead piglets is heartbreaking.”
A farmer's lot
The 66-year-old has been running the farm in the Cotswolds since 2019, and the Amazon Prime series Clarkson's Farm has won awards and critical acclaim. Yet the day-to-day reality of the job has brought its own challenges.
He has said farmers cannot book summer holidays because they do not know when the harvest will begin. This year it arrived in mid-July, but there are times when “you don't get cracking” until the end of September.
No pay for wheat and barley
Despite the difficulties, Clarkson says he loves working on the farm and there is “nowhere you'd rather be” - although he concedes there is “one slight fly in the ointment”.
He claimed: “Thanks to the hot summer and this government's strange hatred of farmers, you don't actually get paid for the wheat and the barley you've harvested. In fact, I worked out this morning that it's be cheaper to go on an expensive holiday.”
Impossible to make money
Clarkson has previously opened up about other issues on the Oxfordshire farm, which he initially bought in 2008 before trying to run it himself. He recently said turning a profit from growing food was now “impossible”.
He wrote in a column: “Action is needed now because farmers have reached the point where it is quite simply impossible to make money from growing food. This year, I have 200 acres on my farm where we grew nothing at all. We knew that if we planted it with wheat or barley, we would definitely make a loss.”
TB outbreak heartbreak
Clarkson also spoke about an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis on the farm last year. On the show, he said: “Those of you not involved in cow farming, you have no idea how devastating that is. I mean, we were absolutely heartbroken at the farm, having to send pregnant cows off for Keir Starmer to kill them for no reason.”
At the time, he told Times Radio: “It's awful, it is awful. You have a test every six months on the cows and then you sort of become blasé, it's a hypothetical threat. And then the vet looks up, as he did yesterday lunchtime, and said ‘I'm really sorry this one's failed’. So that means we're now locked down and it's just dreadful, absolutely dreadful.”
A cow called Pepper, who had been the very first calf born on his farm, was expecting twins when she had to be put down due to the disease.
