Fox’s ‘Farmer’ hopes to reap harvest of relationships
The reality relationship show “Farmer Wants a Wife” has reaped a bountiful love harvest since starting in Britain in 2001: The latest version’s trailer boasts that the show’s editions in 35 countries have yielded 180 weddings and 410 children.
It’s America’s turn now, as four agriculturists look for their big-city soulmates in Fox’s “Farmer Wants a Wife” (Wednesdays, 9 EDT/PDT).
Each has been paired with eight women, primarily from urban areas, to see if love can grow in the heartland.
“People say this is where ‘Yellowstone’ meets ‘The Bachelor,’ ” says one of the featured four, Hunter Grayson, a horse rancher from the Black Hat Ranch in Watkinsville, Georgia, “We’re just four down-home guys looking for love.”
Who are the farmers and host of ‘Farmer Wants a Wife’?
Besides Grayson, 31, the “Farmer” team includes Ryan Black, 32, a horse trainer and breeder from Gastonia, North Carolina; Allen Foster, 32, a cattle rancher from Santa Fe, Tennessee; and Landon Heaton, 35, a Stillwater, Oklahoma, cattle rancher and farmer.
Sugarland singer and actress Jennifer Nettles hosts the series, kicking things off with a barn mixer. Each farmer takes part in a speed-dating round, immediately whittling their prospects from eight to five.
Nettles shepherds the farmers in matters of love in the unnatural TV camera-filled world.
“I call myself the fairy godmother,” she says. “This is not their world at all, and even the environment of romance can be quite uncomfortable. So I get to encourage them. I have to say, like, ‘Come on, attaboy’ or ‘Get along little dogie, let’s make those connections.’ ”
Where are the prospective ‘Farmer’ partners from?
The prospective “Farmer” wives are an eclectic crew. Foster’s group includes a Kennesaw, Georgia, yoga instructor and a Nashville blogger. Heaton’s prospects include a Manhattan restaurant manager and a Boston waitress. Black is paired with a Sacramento, California, travel blogger and a Los Angeles mental health therapist.
“Farmer” locations quickly differentiate it from any “Bachelor” shine.
“We’re not on some luxurious vacation island for three months with sunshine and rainbows,” says Grayson, who has a Pacific Palisades, California, dance coach and a Chicago-based human resources manager among his suitors. “We’re bringing these ladies out to our ranches and farms and putting them in the real world, our day-today.”
“Most of them aren’t accustomed to any sort of farm life,” says Nettles. “So for them to come and say, ‘Am I willing to change my lifestyle like this? Is this a lifestyle I’m interested in?’ ”
‘Farmer’ home activities include working with cattle
The down-home activities include tractor and horse riding, predictable manure-shoveling high jinks, and, in Grayson’s case, taking part in procedures such as removing bull testicles.
“Definitely doctoring cattle was an interesting endeavor for the ladies,” Grayson says. “Vaccinations, castrations. It was an eye-opening experience for them.”
But don’t expect “Bachelor” hot tubs or fantasy suites. “It’s going be a wholesome show you’ll be able to watch with your granny and not have to ask her to cover eyes and ears,” says Grayson.
Is ‘Yellowstone’ driving attention?
Grayson believes the success of the “Yellowstone” TV franchise, centered on Kevin Costner’s cattle rancher John Dutton, “has definitely played a part in the attention coming to agriculture.”
Nettles, 48, who was born “down the dirt road from chicken houses” in Douglas, Georgia, says the “Yellowstone” success has helped open “the eyes of a larger part of the country to farm life and farm culture.”
However, Grayson says, “It’s a TV show.”