Jeremy Clarkson's 'disaster' year on Diddly Squat Farm which cost him thousands

Jeremy Clarkson's farming journey plays out on Amazon Prime show Clarkson's Farm (Image: Instagram)

Jeremy Clarkson has opened up about a "disaster" on Diddly Squat Farm. The former Top Gear presenter's farming career has been well-documented on Amazon Prime as Clarkson's Farm.

Not only has Clarkson's journey aired on TV, but he's kept fans updated across a series of books. His latest edition is no different and Diddly Squat: Home to Roost features a shocking admission from the 64-year-old, revealing his staggeringly low profits.

"Of course you've heard this all before. Farmers moan. I spoke to an old boy and he said that in his 60 years of working the land, only two harvests were what he'd call very good," he pens in the book. "This year, though, was noticeably bad. Very bad.

"And what made it worse is that I normally invest maybe £40,000 in seeds, fertiliser and sprays. But last year, thanks to the war in Ukraine and the inflation that resulted, I had to invest £110,000," he continued.

The opening of Jeremy Clarkson's new pub, The Farmer's Dog (Image: PA)

Clarkson added: "And then, having done that, all I could do was hope the weather would be good. Which it wasn't. In my first year of farming I made a profit of £114. That will look like a dream result when I get the figures for this year.

"It's all right for Adam Henson, because somehow, his stuff grew well, and it's all right for me, because I had Amazon in the background. But for thousands of other farmers it's not all right: 2023 has been a disaster."

It's not the only issue Jeremy's facing over his new business venture. The telly star recently opened up his pub, The Farmer's Dog. Unfortunately, this has also been hit by financial woes, with Jeremy admitting losing £10 for every customer who walked through the door.

The former Grand Tour fan-favourite claimed 400 of his glasses were getting stolen from his newly-opened establishment. Hundreds flocked to the Cotswolds in the summer to become one of the first to taste his delights in Asthall, near Burford in Oxfordshire.

The pub is set in five acres of land and reportedly cost the father-of-three “less than £1 million” to initially purchase. But since it opened on August 23, Jeremy’s journey as a pub landlord has been anything but smooth.

"I asked an AI program to work out what the average price of lunch in a Cotswolds pub is and just charged that," he told The Times. "It's possible that for every customer who comes through the door, I'd lose about £10."

Things aren't getting any better, as Jeremy just wrote in The Sun: "Have a guess how many beer glasses are stolen from my pub every week? No, you’re quite wrong, I’m afraid. It’s 400. This means that on every day we are open we are losing 80, along with all the light bulbs from the lavatories and even the urinal traps."

Last month Jeremy revealed The Farmer’s Dog was costing him “a fortune” to run, telling The Mirror he had his doubts on whether he would “ever make [his] money back” after investing £1million in refurbishing.