Jeremy Clarkson relays ‘simply impossible’ bleak Diddly Squat update

The TV star purchased the Oxfordshire farm back in 2008 and has since recorded five series of the hit Prime Video show Clarkson’s Farm there.

Episodes show Mr Clarkson’s struggles with getting to grips with farming, and later seasons also highlight his purchase of an Asthall pub for around £1 million.

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The Windmill near Burford was renamed by the 66-year-old to The Farmer’s Dog, and the watering hole opened for business in the summer of 2024.

Now, the presenter has revealed that he deliberately chose not to grow anything on 200 acres of Diddly Squat this year because the sums no longer add up.

Writing in his newspaper column, he said: “Action is needed now because farmers have reached the point where it is quite simply impossible to make money from growing food.

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“This year, I have 200 acres on my farm where we grew nothing at all.

“We knew that if we planted it with wheat or barley, we would definitely make a loss.”

Clarkson warned that the outlook is likely to get even worse in the coming years, pointing to plans for a Net Zero carbon tax on fertiliser and other rising costs facing growers.

He suggested that, instead of producing food, farmers could soon be driven to rent their land to large agribusinesses growing crops to feed anaerobic digesters, or to install solar farms and data centres simply to stay afloat.