Jeremy Clarkson has shared a worrying announcement about his farm Diddly Squat. The former Top Gear star, 66, opened up about his money worries after facing a bad harvest. It comes after he was forced to halt filming on the farm for his Amazon Prime series Clarkson's Farm due to bad weather. He also wrote in his Sunday Times column: "We know for a fact we won't make money on wheat and barley. And we're still closed down with TB." Now, Clarkson has admitted his financial situation is still not looking good, as he is still unable to farm on Diddly Squat.
He wrote in his Sunday Times column that the farm will host a major farming festival this summer called Cereals. Clarkson said: "I’m very proud that we’ve been selected to host this prestigious event, 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."
He continued: "Last month, when I would normally be out in the fields planting the spring barley and the durum wheat, Cheerful Charlie, my land agent and all-round font of wisdom, told me that this year there’s absolutely no point, because even if the weather is perfect and I make no mistakes, we are guaranteed to lose money. It is a mathematical certainty.
"This surprised me because last year, thanks to the long, hot summer, the harvest was terrible. The second worst in living memory. Yields were down by as much as 40 per cent. So because I had studied economics for several months at school, I reckoned that supply would not match demand and that prices would skyrocket as a result.
"It turns out, however, that only northern Europe had a bad harvest last year. For the rest of the world it was bountiful, so as a result the market is drowning in grain, and as a result the price is extremely low.
"So if I grew wheat this year, in the UK, where energy, labour costs and taxes are extremely high, I’d be screwed."
He added that he was writing his column while looking at his farmland, which "has been made redundant".
However, it has been confirmed that Clarkson's Farm series five will be returning to Amazon on June 3, with the season being divided into three parts.
