“You’re fired!” These are the first words Kaleb Cooper, Jeremy Clarkson’s tractor driver and right hand man says to the former Top Gear host when he appoints him farm manager.
The Prime Video show, which debuted in 2021, follows life on Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire. The new season is set to launch on the streaming platform on Friday May 3, with the additional episodes due on May 10.
What will Clarkson’s Farm season 3 be about?
The third series of Clarkson’s Farm finds Diddly Squat in turmoil. The council has shut down the restaurant, crops are failing in the extreme weather, inflation and the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war has driven up costs, and now the farm shop is under threat.
Desperate to find new income streams, Jeremy decides to “farm the unfarmed” and try to make a profit from the 500 acres of wild hedgerows and thick woodland.
This ignites a blizzard of hair-brained Jeremy schemes, from harvesting nettles, planting mustard and making jam to goat herding, pig breeding and growing mushrooms in an underground air raid shelter, that will have viewers - and his trusty financial adviser Charlie - screaming.
Clarkson’s Farm season 3 trailer
“It’s a way of trying to earn money from every little postage stamp of land without spoiling the countryside; picking blackberries and nettles doesn’t do anybody any harm,” says the 64-year-old who is the first to confess he’s no expert in any aspect of farming.
What is Kaleb’s job in series 3?
Meanwhile, Kaleb is in charge of the fields and must also deal with an unwelcome rival who has a new way of growing crops.
“Jeremy and I have a little bit of a competition where we see who can make the most money – me doing the traditional farming, and Jeremy working on the unfarmed land.
“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.”
He still finds time, with Charlie, to accept an invitation to Downing Street, where he dispenses some Kaleb wisdom and compliments Rishi Sunak on his hairstyle.
Amongst the laughs, profanities, machinery escapades and the unforgettable sight of Jeremy in a white beekeeping suit, there is genuine heartbreak in store as the pig breeding doesn’t go according to plan.
“It turns out that pigs aren’t great mothers as a general rule, but the sandy and blacks breed that we got makes for a particularly poor mother,” says Jeremy, grateful to have the hands-on help of his Dublin-born girlfriend Lisa, especially when the pigs were giving birth in the middle of the night.
Farming on television has been portrayed in the past as fresh straw, fluffy lambs, agreeable calves. We wanted to show everybody what real farming is
— Jeremy Clarkson
“When you’ve got a sow that’s in trouble, you have to help out, and the fact is that Lisa’s hands are smaller than mine so she was the first to say, ‘It has to be me, it would be ridiculous to put your big old boxing gloves up the sow’.”
Tears and heartache
Sadly rearing animals isn’t all about cute cuddles, as former artist and model Lisa (51) reveals: “Farming’s just sad. The animals become your family. When they become unwell, you’re losing members of your animal family.”
Determined to document the full unpredictable tapestry of life on a working farm, Clarkson’s Farm doesn’t shy away from showing the life and death decisions.
“Farming on television has been portrayed in the past as fresh straw, fluffy lambs, agreeable calves: a bit like Babe. I had it in my head before we ever started the farm that farming wasn’t like that - that it was much dirtier and harder. We want to show everybody what real farming is,” adds Clarkson, who is joined along the way by neighbour Gerald.
Although not officially announced, it is believed filming for Clarkson’s Farm series four is ongoing. When asked how long she would like to continue making the show Lisa says: “As long as it’s educating people, and showing people how difficult farming is, and it’s helping people appreciate food in a way that they may not have before. Maybe people will pop their bread in the freezer instead of throwing it out when they see how much work goes into making a loaf of bread.”
