Top Gear star Jeremy Clarkson has been documenting his triumphs and struggles with farming on his hit Amazon show Clarkson’s Farm.
Fans of the show have enjoyed watching Clarkson get to grips with life in the countryside.
The 61 year old recently opened up in an interview about his battle with chemicals like insecticides on the farm, which he runs himself.
Clarkson revealed that he had lost ten acres of crops trying to find the best way to look after his yield without hurting bees.
He said: “If you spray neonicotinoids on oil seed rape, which you have to do to stop flea beetles eating it, that hurts the bees.
(Image: Amazon Prime)
“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.”
Neonicotinoids are active substances used in plant protection to control harmful insects, they are a type of insecticide.
(Image: Amazon Prime)
Clarkson disclosed that the alternative is to use palm oil.
Speaking to Times Radio he said: “People buy palm oil instead, which of course has a massive effect on the orangutans in Sumatra.
“So then people say you must not hurt the Orangutans, so then you can’t have any form of oil.”
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil. It comes from the fruit of palm trees. It continues to be a major driver for deforestation of some of the world’s most diverse forests and destroying the habitats of orangutans.
It seems that Clarkson needs to find something in the middle that will not harm the bees here or the orangutans in Sumatra.
He went on: “So it’s always a balance, it’s always a struggle, everything you ever do.
“There is nothing organic on my farm – nothing.”
(Image: Amazon Prime)
Clarkson has only had the farm for less than two years, so is still trying to figure it all out, as documented in his hit Amazon show.
Outside of his struggles with crop yield, Clarkson’s Farm enjoys plenty of visits from members of the public on the weekend, some of them queuing for two and a half hours to get inside his Diddly Squat Farm Shop.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
