Broadcaster returns to format after 25 years with renamed six-parter Farming for Love

Fremantle’s dating format Farmer Wants a Wife has scored its third UK version with ITV ordering a six-part renamed series from Naked. 

Farming for Love is a 6 x 60-minute series that follows a group of single farmers seeking their perfect match and offers them the chance to find genuine romance in authentic settings.

The farmers select potential partners from applications and invite them to move onto the farm, where they experience the realities of rural life first-hand. At the end of the experiment, each farmer must choose the person they believe could truly be ‘the one’.

Farming for Love is based on Farmer Wants a Wife, which Fremantle adapted from an original idea by Country Living magazine. The series originally aired on ITV in 2001 and ran for two series before becoming an international hit.

It was rebooted by Channel 5 in 2009 and then in 2018 by BBC2, which rebranded it as Love in the Countryside.

Fremantle holds global distribution and production rights to the format, which has aired in more than 34 territories. To date, the franchise has led to more than 250 marriages and the arrival of over 600 babies.

Farming for Love was commissioned for ITV by Katie Rawcliffe, director of entertainment, reality and daytime, Lily Wilson, former commissioning editor and Iona MacKenzie, commissioning editor. The executive producers for Naked are Nicola Lloyd and Louise Quayle.

Rawcliffe said: “Farming for Love is funny, feelgood and heartwarming. It’s a love story with farming at the heart of it.”

Lloyd, Naked’s creative director, added: “Farming has never been more popular, but finding love while running a farm remains a real challenge. Farming for Love has all the heart, humour and authenticity that make a great dating show, and I’m thrilled we will be helping people find love this time on British farms.”