The Grand Tour

Jeremy Clarkson Has Second Thoughts On Farming: “I Simply Don’t Have The Mental Capacity”

After recent events, Jeremy Clarkson has admitted that he’s losing his faith in his farming abilities as he continues to grow Diddly Squat Farm for his highly praised show, Clarkson’s Farm. He admits in a recent column that farming isn’t quite as easy as he initially expected it to be.

He tells fans that he has 99 problems, yet isn’t able to fix any of them as he splits his time between other responsibilities such as The Grand Tour and his other business interests like writing, admitting that he doesn’t have the “mental capacity to make rational decisions”.

On top of this, he also admitted that he didn’t expect farming to be so political, saying that he was expecting to just be “mostly chewing on bits of grass while leaning on a fence”. But with the war in Ukraine looming over the UK economy and increasing expenses, he’s worried about the financial impact on farming as nitrate fertiliser, fuel, and other associated costs sky rocket.

“I get worn out if I’m wiring a plug and someone asks me for the time,” Jeremy writes. “I’m never able to reset my head so there’s a blank piece of paper inside it.

“It’s always full of doodles from the last thing I was doing, and phone numbers and notes for columns I must write later in the week.”

“Anyway, this inability to focus on complex problems is one of the (many) reasons why I’m turning out to be a not-so-good farmer.

“Because of rising gas prices caused by all sorts of world events, fertiliser prices have shot up from about £250 a tonne to three or four times that. Many farmers are therefore thinking about using less on their crops, which will reduce the yield.”

The Grand Tour presenter then admitted that he’s been thinking of selling the nitrate he currently owns:

“If I sold it now, I’d make a profit of maybe £30,000. But then I’d have none to put on my crops.

“How much would this affect yield up here in the brashy stratosphere of north Oxfordshire? And what if the war ends tomorrow and everything returns to normal?”

Continuing, he wonders whether he should sell the farm and cut his losses:

“Fight or flight? Flee or wee? Pork pie or tongue?

“I thought farming would be mostly chewing on bits of grass while leaning on a fence, not this. Not playing geopolitics.”

He continued to complain about the effect of the war on product prices:

“And now comes this terrible and stupid war, which is going to cause bread, pasta and vegetable oil to become more expensive than gold, frankincense and myrrh.

“And it’s no good saying, ‘Oh, we will just get our food from abroad,’ because farmers over there are in the same boat.”

The next series of Clarkson’s Farm is expected to air later this year on Amazon Prime Video. Viewers will then get a more behind the scenes look at how the economic downfall has affected not just Diddly Squat Farm, but farms across the country as Jeremy once again gives us a realistic view on the industry.

Alex Harrington

Alex started racing at a young age so certainly knows his way around a car and a track. He can just about put a sentence together too, which helps. He has a great interest in the latest models, but would throw all of his money at a rusty old French classic and a 300ZX. Contact: [email protected]

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