Jeremy Clarkson Is “A Little Embarrassed” His Farm Is Hosting 30,000 Farmers — While Barely Farming Anything Himself
There’s a particular kind of irony that only Jeremy Clarkson could turn into genuinely entertaining newspaper copy: being selected to host one of British agriculture’s biggest annual gatherings, while simultaneously admitting his own farm has essentially ground to a halt.
Diddly Squat was chosen to host Cereals, a prestigious two-day event drawing agricultural professionals from across the country, roughly 30,000 farmers descending on the Cotswolds to talk shop, compare notes, and generally celebrate everything British farming has to offer. Writing in his Sunday Times column, Clarkson didn’t hide his discomfort with the timing. “I’m very proud that we’ve been selected to host this prestigious event,” he wrote, “but also a little embarrassed, because 30,000 farmers will be talking nonstop about farming on a farm where not much actual farming is going on.”
It’s not an exaggeration for comic effect either. Clarkson laid out the genuinely stark economics behind the decision bluntly: “We know for a fact we won’t make money on wheat and barley. And we’re still closed down with TB.” Between depressed commodity prices and Britain’s comparatively high costs for energy, labour and taxation, growing conventional cereal crops simply doesn’t add up anymore. “If I grew wheat this year, in the UK, where energy, labour costs and taxes are extremely high, I’d be screwed,” he wrote, with characteristic bluntness.
Faced with roughly 1,000 acres of land rendered essentially useless for its intended purpose, Clarkson landed on a solution that’s peak Clarkson in every possible way: hiring a 13-tonne digger. He acknowledged the potential problem with that plan almost immediately, describing the combination of heavy machinery and genuinely idle time as, in his own words, “the most dangerous combination” imaginable, a man famous for chaotic, expensive farming mishaps essentially warning readers in advance that giving himself a giant digger with nothing productive to actually dig sounds like a recipe for exactly the kind of disaster his show has built five seasons around.
It’s a genuinely fitting piece of self-awareness from someone who’s spent years documenting his own worst instincts on camera. Rather than simply admitting defeat and leaving 1,000 acres sitting empty and unremarkable, Clarkson’s instinct, entirely predictably, was to find some way to keep himself occupied with the land regardless, consequences apparently still to be determined.
The Cereals hosting situation captures something genuinely representative of where Diddly Squat sits right now: publicly celebrated as a genuine ambassador for British farming, popular enough to be chosen to host one of the industry’s biggest annual events, while privately grappling with exactly the kind of financial impossibility that’s pushed so many working farms to the brink. It’s a contradiction Clarkson seems entirely aware of, and, true to form, one he’d rather turn into a joke about a digger than pretend doesn’t exist.
