Clarkson's Farm: Lisa Hogan on 'concern' from local farmers
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Clarkson’s Farm has been a huge hit for Amazon Prime Video as well as petrolhead turned farmer Jeremy Clarkson, with a second series in the pipeline. However, 61-year-old Clarkson has opened up about losing ten acres of crops on Diddly Squat Farm as well as his battle against masses of pesky pigeons.
In a recent interview about his farm, which is located between Chipping Norton and Chadlington in Oxfordshire, Clarkson explained the tough decisions he is often faced with about using chemicals such as insecticides.
He explained: “If you spray neonicotinoids on oil seed rape, which you have to do to stop flea beetles eating it, that hurts the bees.
“So everybody would say you mustn’t do that. We must not hurt the bees, it’s obvious.
“However, if you don’t use neonicotinoids your oil seed rape basically dies. I lost about ten acres of it last year.”
Clarkson explained if he cannot spray neonicotinoids – an insecticide which is toxic to bees – on his crops, he simply cannot sell his vegetable oil.
He told Times Radio host Giles Coren: “[This] means people buy palm oil instead, which of course has a massive effect on orangutans in Sumatra.
“So then people say you must not hurt the orangutans, so then you can’t have any form of oil.
“So it’s always a balance, it’s always a struggle, everything you ever do. There is nothing organic on my farm – nothing.”
The former Top Gear presenter went on to admit he is “still not a farming expert” as he has only been running Diddly Squat Farm for less than two years.
He explained: “I’ve only been doing this for about 18 months or two years so I don’t really understand all of it.”
When listening to the opinions of longtime farmers who are for or against using chemicals such as insecticides, Clarkson told Coren he can understand the pros and cons of both viewpoints.
He said: “The only way I can work it out is to say to myself that last year we didn’t use [insecticides] and all of it failed.
“This year it has gone much better, but the pigeons have come in and in massive numbers and they are eating it. They just cannot eat it fast enough.”
Controversially, Coren asked Clarkson what is stopping him from shooting all the pigeons which are continuing to eat his rape, as there are no laws against it.
But Clarkson replied: “No, you couldn’t keep up. It’s like hoovering water, it’s just never ending.
“It’s a never ending conveyor belt of pigeons eating the rape.”
“To be honest we do shoot at a lot of them, but it’s just pointless because there’s a thousand more the next day.
Despite the ongoing difficulties Clarkson faces with his thousand-acre plot, he appears to have no plans of throwing in the towel just yet.
Fans of the show can look forward to a second season of the show returning.
No release date has been announced as of yet, but Amazon has confirmed filming for the second series of Clarkson’s Farm is underway.
Clarkson’s Farm is available to watch exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.
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