Field of dreams
The search for love continues as Farmer Wants a Wife returns. Danielle McGrane catches up with one of this year’s farmers, Will, who explains why he needed to take part in the reality show.
Farmer Will had been single for quite a while before he decided to do something drastic to find love.
“If you said I’d been single for 10 years I wouldn’t correct you, it’s been something like that,” he said.
Because of his lifestyle,
Will hadn’t found it easy to meet someone. Based in a small place called Longwood in north central Victoria,
Will has stayed in the family business of farming.
“I’ve been living and working on this farm for the last three years, and the family farm isn’t too far away, it’s less than an hour’s drive,” he said.
“This place is prime land, which is basically land for sheep for meat purposes, and my family background before that was always beef cattle.”
Will’s daily schedule is full on with not a lot of down time factored in, and his location doesn’t allow for spontaneous encounters either.
“I’m usually up at 4.30am, before the sun’s even up. I’ve got to let the dogs out for a run, let the chooks out, see to the pet calves – there’s so many things you’ve got to do before you even go to work,” he said.
“It’s difficult. You’re isolated and it really is a seven-day-aweek job. And then just the logistics of going to a bar to meet someone doesn’t even work because you’ve got to stay the night wherever you go because you’ve got to drive home.”
Add a pandemic to the mix and it’s become even harder to meet someone.
So if ever there was a time to take a chance, Will knew it was now or never. Needless to say, it didn’t take much for him to sign up to take part in the popular reality show, Farmer Wants a Wife.
“When we started filming it was at a time where everyone felt like we didn’t know where we’re going so just take every opportunity you can get,” he said.
He also knew the odds were stacked in his favour. Unlike a lot of other reality dating shows, the success rate on this one was pretty high. Since Farmer Wants a Wife first aired in 2007, there have been nine
Farmer Wants a Wife.
now with three kids. They thought it would be a good idea to throw me to the wolves,” he said.
But he recognised that they had a point, this was a rare chance to potentially find love. “The show is a wonderful opportunity to just meet people you would never ever get the chance to meet. The girls and I would often joke about how there’s not a hope any of us would have ever met if it wasn’t for the show,” he said.
Will went into the show knowing what he wanted to find in a partner.
“I don’t have a stereotypical type of girl or anything, but I just wanted to meet someone I get along with. Someone who’s easygoing and is happy to live – or at least be open to the idea of living – this lifestyle, because it’s certainly not for everyone,” he said.
“And they were all so good and just threw themselves into it. I said all the way through ‘You don’t have to have done it beforehand, you don’t have to be good at it, just that you’re willing to have a go and throw yourself into these very foreign situations’. It’s not rocket science, the rest comes with experience. We all started from nowhere. I just started a bit younger than them.”
The women competing for Will’s affections had varying degrees of farming experience before appearing on the show.
“One of them was a zookeeper and at the time was working as a farmhand on a dairy farm, so she took to it like a duck to water. All bar one of the girls had had some kind of farming experience, to very different levels. But one of the girls really hadn’t at all, I think she’d been to a daffodil farm once but they all threw themselves into it and were great,” he said.
The one thing they all had in common was a desire to meet a farmer and try this way of living.
“I think for the most part they just liked the idea of the lifestyle,” Will said.
“It’s very tranquil, it’s a good way to live. It might be a bit hard or a bit primitive, but it’s a good way to live. It’s a happy life. Even when things are bad, which they so often are with droughts and fires, you still sit back at the end of the day and are thankful.”
It’s one thing to have a desire to live that lifestyle but another to actually experience it away from whatever fantasy the contestants might have had. So taking part in Farmer Wants a Wife is a one way to see what it’s really like to be a farmer.
“Some might see a TV show like Yellowstone and get an idea that that’s farming. We do have very exciting moments but a lot of the time it’s just dull and mundane, you’ve got to do these certain jobs for your animals. It’s really important to go in without those expectations, that this is it, warts and all,” Will said.
“Some days are beautiful, perfect days, though. You go for a ride, just out in the elements, and you might see something incredible like fox cubs playing, or a kangaroo, and get a close encounter with an animal.”
The show was full of surprises for Will too.
“It was very different to what I expected, very foreign to my lifestyle,” he said.
“I went on some wonderful dates with some wonderful ladies and we’d have catch-ups once a week with all the other farmers and their girls and we just got to see a lot of the country and do a lot of really nice things.”
Whether or not Will found love, he’s not saying. All will be revealed when the show goes to air. “What I can say is that I did have some wonderful dates, one of them was one of the highlights of my life, let alone of the show, it was a great day out,” he said.
Farmer Will: It’s very tranquil, it’s a good way to live. It might be a bit hard or a bit primitive, but it’s a good way to live.
Farmer Wants a Wife, Sunday, 7pm; MondayWednesday, 7.30pm,
Seven and streaming, 7plus