grahamhobbs wrote:Big Al, having watched 2 episodes I'm beginning to disagree. The 'tests' are totally artificial and how meaningful? We don't eat meat in our house, so how could we come up with 'new' dishes for pork - the same for these guys, if you don't want to be a pig farmer or don't have any cooking skills, it doesn't mean you are not going to be good smallholder. How can the couple who want to grow veg and let allotments, possibly win. Why aren't they judged on what they want to do, how succesful their ideas could be and how well they can implement them, eg. put them through a practical Dragons Den, with some guidance. Then we could all learn something. What did we learn, how to walk a pig around a showground and it's very profitable to make soup if you don't add much meat to it.
On the positive side, at least they don't make the 3 possible losers stand there sweating in suspense whilst the drums roll before the chop comes down as in things like Master Chef.
You won't be the first to disagree with me, hell the wife makes a living out of it! It doesn't matter if no one eats meat in your family, if you are going to raise livestock and have an added value to the animal to make it more profitable then you will soon find a way to come up with new ideas just the same as I would if I want to put on a meal that contained no meat.
The idea of showing a pig or other animal was to let the public and the contestant know that the animal and any offspring can be more valuable with a rosette or cup over not having one.
I was under the impression that the small 1/2acre "trial farm" was to let the couples who want to do it on a real farm see how hard it was and also to let Jimmy D see how they would / could work together.Also it would show if they had a viable business brain in order to make money out of the farm. I don't think the couple with the allotments idea will win but then I'm going native and hoping the Geordies will win.
) We haven't seen it yet.
Read my 
