JEREMY Clarkson is baffled that Our Yorkshire Farm’s Amanda Owen makes any money as a shepherdess on her ‘brutal’ estate.
Jeremy, 61, has had a 1,000 acre farm since 2008 but only took over it himself in 2019.
His first foray into farming will be explored in his new Amazon Prime Video series, Clarkson’s Farm, and Jeremy admits it’s been a steep learning curve.
As well as planting seeds and growing crops in his fields, Jeremy decided to buy a flock of sheep, but quickly learned they cost more to look after than they make from their wool or meat.
It left him with a whole lot of respect for Amanda, 46, and her husband Clive, who run Ravenseat farm in the Yorkshire Dales and document it on Channel 5 show, Our Yorkshire Farm.
Speaking to The Celeb Report Online about his new show, Jeremy said: “Sheep are complicated to keep and they make no money.
“When you shear a sheep, it costs you £1.45 to have it sheared and the wool is worth 30p. It’s not really a business proposition.”
It left Jeremy wondering how Amanda and Clive make any money with their own flock of sheep and the weather conditions they work in as he added: “The Yorkshire Shepherdess I’ve got the greatest respect for the way they live as I know that part of the world and it’s brutal in the winter up there. It’s not easy.”
Jeremy had his fair share of weather-related problems as he started out in his new life as a farmer.
He said: “We have been farming now for two years, my head is just full of farming.
“Set backs were weather, weather, weather, Brexit, weather, Covid, weather, and sheep.
“There were five separate weather records set in a 12 month period. Every farmer around here said ‘you couldn’t have chosen a worse year to start farming’.”
He continued: “We couldn’t even get seeds in the ground because it didn’t stop raining for nine weeks.
“And then everything cooked before we could get it out the ground [because of the heat], and yes I do see the irony of being screwed up be global warming, well climate change.”
Clarkson’s Farm will launch Friday June 11 on Amazon Prime Video.
