Country LIFE!

MATT BAKER on his Apprentice-style search for aspiring tenant farmers

- IAN MACEWAN

OUR DREAM FARM WITH MATT BAKER

SATURDAY, 8PM, C4 REALITY

Fancy running your own farm? The applicants on Matt Baker’s new C4 reality contest, Our Dream Farm, would love to. But to secure a 10-year tenancy on beautiful Gallows Hill Farm, nestled within the National Trust’s Wallington estate in Northumberland and comprising 137 hectares of land and a Grade II- listed farmhouse, they must first showcase their credentials by taking on various challenges there, starting with preparations for lambing season.

TV Times caught up with host Matt, 46, whose off-screen life as a farmer is charted in More4 series Our Farm in the Dales, to find out how they plan to separate the wheat from the chaff…

A farm tenancy is the prize at the end of this eight-part series. Where did that idea come from?

I wanted to shine a light on the tenant-farming system, as there are so many people who want to farm, but can’t afford to buy their own farms.

Can you tell us how the competition works?