TV

Fox's 'Farmer Wants a Wife': 'The Bachelor' meets 'Yellowstone' in heartland reality dating show

Bryan Alexander
USA TODAY

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 the show's editions in 35 countries have yielded 180 weddings and 410 children.

It's America's turn now, as four homespun agriculturists look for their big-city soulmates  in Fox's "Farmer Wants a Wife" (Wednesdays, 9 EST/PST).

Each has been paired with eight women, picked primarily from urban areas across the country, to see if lasting 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."

The four cowboy hat-clad "Farmers." Hunter Grayson, Ryan Black, Allen Foster and Landon Heaton. "I came out of the womb and grabbed a hat. It's in my family," says Grayson.

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 an opening 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. Sometimes I have to say, like, 'Come on, attaboy' or 'Get along little doggie, let's make those connections.' "

Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles is the host of "Farmer Wants a Wife."

Where are the prospective 'Farmer' partners from?

The prospective "Farmer" wives are an eclectic crew, primarily from cities across the country. 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-to-day. They are put to the test and fully immersed in what our lives are truly like."

"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?' It's a very specific culture."

"Farmer Wants a Wife" contestants meet for a group mixer in the opening episode, but quickly head to the homeland.

'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 doctoring 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. These are replaced by porch-rocking chair gazes and respectful kissing. "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.

And don't expect any "Bachelor"-style rose ceremonies signifying prospects will stay on the show for another week.

"We don't do roses," says Grayson. "How I did it, I presented them with the idea, let's see where this goes for another week. They have to choose us as much as we chose them. They can say no and go home at any time."

DeVonne and Hunter in the series premiere of "Farmer Wants a Wife."

Is 'Yellowstone' driving attention to 'Farmer' living?

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 the murder and revenge lifestyle depicted in that Paramount Network series  is not what life is like at his family's Black Hat Ranch.

"It's a TV show. Life's not that intense all the time for real," says Grayson. "I tell everybody, if you dull everything down about 80 percent, you'll have a real grasp of real life on the ranch."

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