‘Farmer Wants a Wife’ Farmers Reveal What They’re Looking for in a Partner
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The men of Farmer Wants a Wife Season 2 wanted a change in their lives, and a change is what they got. Not just because they each go on romantic journeys in Season 2 of the Fox reality dating series, returning Thursday, February 1, but also because their farm lives are combined with the world of TV production while filming.
In Farmer Wants a Wife, four farmers are each set up with eight women who are leaving their city lives behind to see if life in rural America is for them. Once there are five women left in each group, they’ll being their stays on the farmers’ homesteads. But farming doesn’t stop just because there’s a camera crew and a cast of women staying at your house.
Brandon Rogers (29), a potato farmer, tells TV Insider he had to learn how to balance filming and farming time when production came to his homestead right as his yearly harvest started. There are no weeks off in this line of work.
“When it’s time to farm, you’ve got to farm. That was the hardest part for me,” he says. “I work all year for this three-week span of harvest. Harvest is chaotic, and then you bring in crew and women and all these different personalities on top of that; that was quite the experience to learn on the fly.”
He’s not complaining. Having the show film during this important season “gives great representation to farming and the potato industry.” There were some growing pains with production, and they had to learn that the weather may force the farmers to take a filming break at times (something they undoubtedly were exposed to in Season 1).
“If it’s hot outside and you let potatoes sit out in the sun for a certain amount of time, they’ll actually pressure crack, and it’s like throwing away 10 grand,” Brandon explains.
Farmer Mitchell Kolinsky (27) is a newcomer to this way of life: “I just purchased my farm the same week that we started filming,” he reveals. But that was part of the appeal of going on the show.
(L-R) Ty Ferrell, Brandon Rogers, Mitchell Kolinsky, and Nathan Smothers in Farmer Wants a Wife Season 2 (Fox)
“We took on such a big leadership role doing this because every day waking up, all the pressure’s on us,” Mitchell says of hosting the cast and crew. “If we wake up and we walk outside and we’re in a bad mood and say, ‘Oh, we got to do this work,’ of course, it’s going to wear off on the girls. We wanted the girls to have a good time.”
Brandon says the farmers won’t “kiss and tell” about their time with the Farmer Wants a Wife Season 2 women, but the four farmers did bond for life through this experience. All four of them signed up for this series in hopes of falling in love.
Farmer Ty Ferrell (at 42, the oldest of the farmers) says, “I was in love before I came to this, and I was definitely in love after with my daughter.” Being divorced himself, he told casting he was interested in finding a woman who has also been married before and has kids, but he acknowledges that asking a mother to take extended time away from her kids may not be doable.
Farmer Nathan Smothers (23, the youngest farmer in the group) says casting did a great job at finding women they’d each connect with.
“All the women, they’re all beautiful. They’re all very intelligent,” Nathan shares. “I think casting did a really good job of taking what we were looking for and presenting those girls to us.”
Here’s what the farmers told casting they were looking for, plus why they signed onto the series in the first place.
Farmer Wants a Wife, Season 2 Premieres Thursday, February 1, 9/8c, Fox
Farmer Brandon
Why He Joined: “The lifestyle I live and what I do for a living, I have to be here. This is where everything takes place. This is where I make my money, this is where I live my life. You might meet somebody amazing in Denver four hours away and you have a great time, dinner date, whatever it may be, but then she may not want to move here. And so then it always ends up empty-hearted and you feel this stopping point, whereas this show opened the dynamic that these women come and see what you do for a living. They really adapt to farm lifestyle and they’re open to moving, so that’s the best part.”
What He’s Looking For: “I really was looking for somebody that enjoyed this slow-paced lifestyle, the country living, and the outdoors. I live in a high mountain valley that’s 7,700 feet above altitude surrounded by mountains. And I’m not looking for somebody to be like a stay-at-home wife by any means, but for somebody like Nathan said that is there to support me and understand that there’s times on the farm where I’m going to be sun up to sundown seven days a week, but she can help me along through that. We’re also going to reap the benefits of it when we’re hanging out and getting to do a little vacation time and enjoy each other during the off season. So really looking for a strong partner that wanted out of the city and to enjoy the slow-paced lifestyle that I like living.”
Farmer Mitchell
Why He Joined: “I was just really excited for the opportunity to meet eight new girls and then bring five back to live with me, because you never get that opportunity in life. Growing up, my mom was really involved with service and hospitable acts of having people over, and that’s what I wanted to do is just cook for these girls and show them my life and see if it would be a good fit for them. Being close to Nashville, I guess they could get a little bit of taste of the city and the country. So I felt like I had a good chance of connecting with someone even if they weren’t fully ready for that rural lifestyle, but just at the worst make new friends. [I was] really excited to meet new people.”
What He’s Looking For: “I felt like I really lucked out. I had a lot of generous women that helped out on the farm, and with that in mind, I wanted them to be able to grow the farm with me. So that’s the type of girl I was really looking for. I was open to ideas. I was in a little bit different situation than most of these guys, Nathan being the fourth generation, and I’m just now getting started. So my farm’s sort of an open slate, and I was open to ideas and wanted these girls to help me grow it. They’d say, I want to do a flower garden and sell flowers on the side of the road. They say, happy wife, happy life, so whatever I could do to make them happy, to make my farm a better place, I was open for it.”
Farmer Ty
Why He Joined: “A lot of it just came down to my age, and the availability of someone close to my age, and coming to the house and the farm and that being part of it, but also the understanding that they would move or move to the farm, not just meet somebody from four or five hours away. That dynamic of the ladies coming to you with the understanding that if there was something that fit, that works, that would potentially be their new home.”
What He’s Looking For: “There’s of course many different types of ladies, where they’re from, their backgrounds, but when it came down to it, I was hoping for somebody that has a career, a professional woman. Intelligence is as beautiful to me as looks are. But also for them to hopefully have a job that made it available for them to be able to move. Love’s one thing, but location and just the possibility of somebody being able to come and appreciate the lifestyle that we’re at, but also bring their career with them, that’s tough, especially for my age. That was ultimately what I was looking for.”
Farmer Nathan
Why He Joined: “Being 23 and being the young guy of the farmers, it’s hard for me to find people that are like-minded from where I’m from. A lot of people are into the party scene, and they’re not really looking to settle down. And for me also being a farmer, the work schedule, I’m always working. It’s hard to find people that are like-minded without that whole party scene basis. And so honestly, it was more of a mutual interest, or the lack thereof, that was the deciding factor for me wanting this.”
What He’s Looking For: “I said I was looking for somebody that was nurturing, that was caring, and basically somebody that can support me. I’m not necessarily looking for a partner that I can bring to the farm and work alongside me, but somebody that can appreciate what I’m doing and support me along the way.”
