Jeremy Clarkson has never shied away from confrontation – but the new series of Clarkson’s Farm features one of his biggest bust-ups yet. The TV presenter, 64, gets involved in an enormous row with farm manager Kaleb Cooper as they try their hands at construction – with catastrophic consequences.
Usually when the pair argue, Kaleb’s superior farming knowledge sees Jeremy easily bested, but this time, things are different. “I struggle to argue with him about farming because he just knows more than I do,” says Jeremy. “But when we do things like trying to repair the dam, that’s construction, and neither of us really know what we’re doing. So that was one of our big arguments.
“Then he was made to wear health and safety equipment, which nearly killed him because he stepped off the machine still attached to it and hit his head.”
Kaleb, 25, admits the row was seismic but insists the pair remain close friends. “In this series we have probably our biggest ever argument,” says Kaleb. “But don’t get me wrong, I love the man. I think when you’re good friends with someone, and you have that amazing chemistry, it makes everything easier.
“Yes, we can argue, and yes, we can shout at each other, but at the same time, we’re friends.”
While the rows look heated, before long the pair are laughing again. “Two minutes after an argument, we can just agree to disagree and go for a cup of tea or go to the pub and have a pint,” says Kaleb.
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In series three, Jeremy and Kaleb go head-to-head with a little competition – and things get very tasty indeed. “We have a 1,000-acre farm but since I bought it in 2008, we’ve only ever farmed 500 acres of it and the other 500 acres is wildflower meadows, streams, woods and rough ground. I bet Kaleb that
I could earn more money from doing little projects on unfarmed land than he could from farming 500 acres,” explains Jeremy. “So while he was stuck with the traditional wheat, barley, and arable farming, I started harvesting blackberries, planting mustard, and using tiny little pockets of unfarmed land around the place. It’s a way of trying to earn money from every little postage stamp of land without spoiling the countryside.
“It was a case of, can we make five pounds here and a bit of money there? I won’t spoil what happens but it was an interesting experiment.”
Jeremy wants to highlight how much of a gamble farming is and how an enormous outlay at the start of the year can be wiped out by bad weather or disease. While his TV career has made him vastly wealthy, he still struggles to make his farm pay. “Last year before the harvest we had to lay out £108,000 on diesel, fertiliser sprays and the seed itself. That’s a huge bet,” explains Jeremy. “You have a hell of a lot of sleepless nights when you know that one rainstorm could wreck the lot.”
The pair have fun trying to outdo each other, but for Kaleb they’re highlighting a serious issue. “I won’t say who won, but I think it’s going to really drive it home for people that you really have to speculate a lot of money as a farmer without knowing if you’re going to make any of it back,” says Kaleb. “Of course I wanted to win. But at the same time, we are a team and at the end of the day, I want to make the farm money. I wanted to prove that I could win and show people that I can think outside the box and make a bit of money.”
This series sees Jeremy and girlfriend Lisa Hogan start breeding pigs – resulting in emotional moments. “It turns out that pigs aren’t great mothers as a general rule, but the sandy and black breed that we got makes for a particularly poor mother,” says Jeremy, who called on Lisa to help deliver the piglets.
After bonding with the pigs in a way she never expected, Lisa struggles when animals are lost. “I didn’t think I’d be that enamoured by pigs but I did get really close to them,” says Lisa. “Farming’s just sad. The animals become your friends and you’re isolated. It was heart-breaking.”
Clarkson’s Farm airs Friday 3rd May on Amazon Prime Video. You can watch Clarkson’s Farm for free over 30 days if you sign up for Prime Video’s latest offer here.
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