It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week that line. Hey guys, welcome back to TV Reload. I want to thank you for clicking and downloading. On today's episode with Farmer Burt, the cutest farmer on Farmer Wants a Wife, which started Sunday night at seven thirty on Channel seven. This fourth generation pineapple and dragon fruit farmer is impeccably mannered, selfless,
and honest. I will also say he does come across a little bit shy at times, but I actually think that's a little bit of part of his charm. Farmer Burt has worked hard to take over the family farm and runs it on his own. He now wants someone to, of course, come and share it with him, which is I guess, the whole premise of the show. His ideal partner is funny, outgoing, adventurous, understands the long hours of his work, can banter and get along with everybody, especially
his nana, whose disapproval could be a deal breaker. Farmer Burt will open up about his relationship history with me and explain why things haven't worked out for him in the past. We will unpack Farmer Burt's process of being cast on the show and what his family thought about putting his chances of love in the hands of television producers.
We will get some interesting insights into how they pick these women to meet these eligible blokes, and how much information did Farmer Burt know about these ladies before meeting them. I'm also delighted to hear about a bromance that has formed with one of the other farmers, and we'll find out how that plays out throughout the series. There's actually so much to unpack with Farmer Burt, and if you've seen the promos, you know he's a bit of a
cute batunity. So guys sit back and relax as we unpack the wonderful world of Farmer Wants a Wife for twenty twenty four.
Hey, Farmer Burt, how are you good?
Thanks Burn, how are you?
I'm done doing very well. I actually was singing to myself. Sometimes I do a bit of singing to myself to get myself ready to do these podcast chats because I'm often sitting here by myself, and then it can come across as quite strange. So I try to embarrass myself as much as possible before the chat start to make myself feel a little bit more like I don't know, maybe you would want to sing a song to start the chat.
Oh no, nobody ever needs to hear anything, mate, I'm going to show you of that.
I'm going to ask you straight off the bat, are you ready for your life to change? Because this is a very unusual experience. I think if you're in a remote farm and you're probably not used to the big city and then all of a sudden you're kind of becoming like a television star, is that weird?
It's definitely something out of the ordinary for me. I wouldn't go as far as saying as my farm's too remote. I'm pretty close to the city, believe it or not. But yeah, as far as the television and everything else does, it's definitely a very big change of scenery.
Yeah, I was.
Actually I've got the mapp up on my computer right now, so I'm looking at it. So you're really not that far from Brisbane, But you're also not that far from the Sunshine Coast either. I mean, it's very beautiful part of the world, but you're still close to some of the nightlife. Where would you normally go if you were looking to go and look for a woman. Would you be going down to is better? Would go to the Sunshine Coast? Which one of those areas is more suited to you?
Oh gosh, I'm not sure. I've no. I guess I've really avoided the night light for a long time now. It's well, not not so much avoided it, but just not really had a lot of time for It's MBD here and such. But I wouldn't say that I'd like, you know, look in one place over the other. But yeah, they're both. You know, I can be being cloundering like half an hour forty five minutes depending on the traffic, so it's not very far at all.
So the ladies that are coming to live with you, they're not going to be like, you know, six hours away from anything that on some sort of regional you know, rex flight to try and go and see their friends. They can sort of still enjoy both sides of it, I guess.
Oh, absolutely, yeah. And you know, my brother lives here on the farm, but he works in the Brisbane like in Brisbane City most of the time. It's not too far to go really, so yeah, yeah, I've heard it a few times, you know, I don't really want to change anybody's life style, and it's worked hard to be sort of where they are in their life, so it is quite convenient for that being so central to pretty busy business.
I mean, your multi generational pineapple farmer. Was there ever a choice for you to do anything else? Did your parents say, well, your name's Bert and that's the tradition in our family. Now you run the pineapple farm or were you allowed to sort of make that decision for yourself.
Yeah, Look, I was always able to make the decision myself. You know that there was never any pressure or an expectation as such to take it over. Obviously they would love for it to continue. So you know when I did come back start my own sort of farming, then yeah, they were pretty happy with that. But yeah, I took off for a few years prior to and lived and you know, got to experience something other than the farm,
I suppose. You know, when my dad started farming, he was fifteen or something like that and norly ever really did was farm. So he was always very supportive of me, you know, going out and doing something a little bit different, getting the different experiences disease and stuff like that. Before I you know, really tied yourself down because once you once you commit to the farms, that's a relationship in itself. You are committing to pull a full time job at
a really signed job. You hear all the time. You know, it doesn't matter if it's a weekend or not. You shift. The work's there to be done. It's got to be done, so you can't do it tomorrow next week.
Yeah, it's a relationship, of course, it's a full time relationship.
I mean, what made you want to do this show?
Though? I mean I was watching the first few episodes and you are quite shy in the way that you come across, which I actually think is quite endearing. I think audiences will be quite endeared to that part of you, which you might be a little bit embarrassed about. But you know, I think that's actually quite heartwarming. But did someone dob you in? Did you apply? Like? How do you find yourself on a show like this?
Yeah? I was definitely. I had my hat thrown in the ring for me from some of my lovely friends. But it's always been always been a bit of a I don't know, I guess a bit of not a running joke. But you know, every year someone like, come on, do it, do it, or you know, will tag me in something with it, and I've always been like, you know, it's too busy or you know, it's not for me. And this year, they you know, sort of did the
application for me. And then you know, I was contacted and you know, just chatting with my dad about it, and he's like, you know what, but why not watch what's the worst that could happen? You know? And at that point, I was pretty happy with where I was in the farm, you know, work wise, and my personal life as well, and you know, I just thought, hey, why not why not do something that's you know, completely out of your comfort zone? And but I guess how it started.
Well, your family okay with you joining this show. I mean you mentioned your dad there that I can imagine once it's all actually happening to reality, I'm assuming that your mom or you know, other people in your family might have had some questions. Did they do they sit you down and sort of ask a lot of questions about why are you doing this show?
Not really, they were all, you know, very very supportive from day one of the whole idea. A bit Mum always just once what's best for me, and you know, and she'll say, oh, you know, you'd never catch me on television and stuff like that, and I was thinking, man, you probably would never catch me on TV. But here we are.
They're probably just happy that you were sitting them down and saying, I'm doing farmer wants a wife, because the reaction to being married at first side or the Bachelor might have been a little bit different.
Hey, yeah, I would think. So. Look, I'm certainly never going to live it down. I think I've given my brother all the ammunition in the world to make fun of me for a little while here. So no, but it's yeah, like I said, they were all all very supportive of the entire thing.
So yeah, yeah, which I think is good. Well, look the thing for me and I think this is what a lot of people are talking about. You are a very good looking rooster. I have to say, how have you become? How are you single at this point in your life? Like you're thirty and you could you could leave the farm, you could leave the pineapples for a career in modeling. You know what's happened?
How are you Sinkle of this book?
Oh?
Ma?
All I can say is they've got some pretty bloody good cameras these days. It's maybe a little bit of camera trickery, but look, I did you know once my time have a very long term relationship, and well.
That's the question I want to know, Like what's your dating history? I mean, how many of you? So you've had a long term relationship in the past, is what you're saying.
What happened?
Like why did that work out?
Well, I don't know if you recall, but a couple of years ago we had this big thing called COVID and that she was Canadian and I was dating her while so I lived over there, and you know, she was supposed to move here and all of that, and you know, once the border is shut and there was no light at the end of the tunnel of when those borders were to be reopened, and kind of likes
of that. So you know, eventually we had to have that difficult conversation of yeah, ending it, and you know we're still very very good friends and all of that. You know, we're always thankful for her, but yeah, just I guess the world had different ideas for it.
So what's a more awkward conversation? The relationship is over? Or the relationship is over and now I'm going on farmer once a wife, Like, let's just hope that she doesn't have Channel seven over there, right.
Oh, no, she knows about it. She has a good laugh. I know when I first told her that that I was going on, and she actually didn't believe me, and that went on for a little while, but I guess she probably knew me better than anyone at that point. So yeah, she had a good laugh about it. And yeah, now it's all good.
What about some of the big hurdles when it comes to finding love in the past, Like, has there were there any red flags for you? What are what are the things that have gone wrong in the past with looking for love?
Well, to be quite honest with you, there hasn't been many. She was probably my only real girlfriend, you know. They had the high school sweetheart, which you know most of us did. And then yeah, when I moved to Canada many years ago, that just just to you know, have a bit of a couple of gap years and experience something different. Yeah, and I just sort of hit it up pretty good and we're together for a long time.
And yeah, so the Jewish Show, I'd say, you know, really my only real girlfriend as such.
So I love the way that you get all about it as though it's a real girlfriend, like it might be an imaginary girlfriend, like you know, maybe you've had some imaginary girlfriends on the farm, just driving around on the track to talking to the missus.
Yeah, yeah, something like that.
The way in which the girls get chosen to be on this show is actually quite interesting because they get to watch a bio video, They get to get to know you a little bit before they choose whether or not they want to go on the show. What did you know about these girls before they turned up?
I guess just a few little bits and pieces. I'd say it's quite similar to what they would have seen of me, you know, like a little bit of a bio and you know some some you know, hobbies, interest, a little bit of career stuff, stuff like that. You know enough to sort of, I guess, have a grasp of who they may be. And then it's the rest of it's all up in the air from there.
And the people who make this show, you know, the producers of the real matchmakers. You know, there's no love experts there that are a part of the show. What sort of interrogation did you get to have with those sorts of people just to make sure that they find the right partners for you?
I guess a lot of the stuff they really want to know is the values that you want in being a partner. I suppose. I guess if you valued aren't really lining up, then it's probably probably not going to be an overly long relationship. So it's a lot of that sort of stuff. Interest who these people are, and if our interests and everything align. That's both.
Did you have any deal breakers, like, you know, did you say no tattoos or did you say age bracket, like don't send me on a date with a forty or a fifty year old? Like did you say there was any deal breakers like that?
You give a bit of an age range of sort of where you're looking, And look, I don't really have many things that are a deal breaks me or like tattoos are fine. I don't personally have any. But I'm a pretty laid back guy, so it's not a lot really bothers me.
Imagine if there was a farmer, you know, there was like a you know, into mills, and so they were like, yep, I'm twenty two, you know, I'm from Caloundra and I'm into ladies over fifty. Do you reckon that'll make a good a good season A farmer wants a wife, I guess with a different show.
On the maturity of the blow. But I think that would be dancing on the edge of more of a married at first sight or something like that.
I mean, the women that you're matched with are very close to your age. I did notice that how did you go with connecting with some of the girls that were just that little bit younger? I think Morgan's the youngest and she's like twenty two. Was that too much of an age gap for you?
At the end of the day, age only is a number, and it's more so about the connection that you have with the person. And I guess the maturity levels and interest and stuff like that have to align. And I wouldn't say that it was, you know, one hundred percent in age thing, just more so finding a connection with you know, who you were going to bring back to the farm rather than.
The Were there any big surprises, like was there anyone that turned up and you were like, that's not this is not who I thought she was going to be. You were you shocked by any of the ladies that turned up or were you thinking chef's kiss well done.
Oh, I had a lot of feelings. It was. It was very overwhelming. I'm not sure how many times you sat down for speed dating with you multiple different women back to back, so it's it's quite an intimidating day and just trying to, you know, absorb as much as you can from each conversation. And yeah, I guess then go to picking you know who you're going to bring
back to the farm. Okay, I don't think you could really say that you could be too shocked by anything because you don't know the girls until you get there, so it's all it's all up in the air. Until that point, it was it was a wild ride, let's put it that way.
I do love a wild ride. I always think that makes good television. But you know, speaking of wild rides, is there a chance that when you're all in that hall in the first episode, that you know, do the producers tell you not to look at farmer Joe or Farmer Dustin or farmer Dean girls like do you think that can become quite difficult? Or did were you standing there thinking, well, I'm happy with my ladies but there's
a couple of ladies over there with farmer Tom. How do they make sure that you're staying within, you know, your own cattle.
I'm not too sure. It's not like I was told to do something or not to do anything like that. I mean, you're going to have a glance around the room and just see who's there. And I can't speak for any of the other boys, but I do get to know all these people at the end of the day, right, so when you know, we meet at different different times throughout the show, as I'm sure you know, and yeah,
you're forming friendships as all of them as well. But no, I was definitely very happy with that came down to meet me and yeah, I'm not about to go out there and make things any harder us for sure.
Did you learn anything about yourself while you were filming? Like the interesting thing about this is such an unusual experience. I mean, it's not something that everyone gets a chance to do. Well.
I definitely know I still get an uncomfortable talk about my feeling, so that do more of that, but hey, some of it exactly exactly. No, Look, I guess towards the end of the series and all that you do do get more so used to you know, the cameras being around and all of the questions and stuff like that. But I'm certainly no pro.
You came across Like I was talking about this earlier, like you seemed more shy than the other farmers. But I just was wondering, is that just who you are by nature? Like do you stay that shy throughout the series? Or do eventually you get used to the cameras and the style of the show and you sort of relax a little bit more Like I mean, I'm still not
saying this is a bad thing. I actually think after watching the first few episodes that Australia is going to love you the most because you're just a genuine guy just being yourself.
Look, I haven't even seen a single episode myself, so I'm not sure what there is on there.
But but how did you feel what I was filming it though, because you know, as they're going along, you know, did you find that at the start you were like, you know, fuck me, these cameras are annoying and then they run down the end.
Yeah, look, at the start of it was very difficult for me. I guess I am quite a reserved person to begin with. But you know, after I've known someone for a while there I do open up a lot more. And I love having a good time with all my mates and stuff. Definitely, meeting you people is always been you know, I do come across probably a little bit more shy and reserved, I suppose, and then yeah, once once the walls come down, then I don't know, you probably tell me shut up pretty quickly.
I mean.
The other thing that I think is interesting about this show is, you know, you get to meet these other farmers. You know, there's you've got what is it, there's five farmers. Did talking to them throughout the experience help you with understanding the process a little bit more to make it feel a little bit easier if you could reach out to them and find out how they're going. Have you walked away with the bromance from one of these one of the other farmers.
Yeah, look all the boys, we all get along really well. It's a great bunch of guys, and you know, it's an experience that not a lot of people have had, and having those guys around and you can just have a chat with and you know, share share the experience or I guess validated feeling that you might be feeling is normal. I suppose. So, yeah, it's really great, and yeah, yeah we all get along really well. Say we're going to be friends for life.
Do you think that Tom might be a bit young, like he's twenty two and he's looking for a wife. Did you pull him aside and say, listen, twenty two, come back when you're thirty, or do you think it's too young at twenty two to be looking for forever relationship.
And a wife?
Oh?
Tom, Tommy, he's twenty two going on seventy that last he's I actually get along with Tom really really well, and he's a great guy, and he's got a world of knowledge behind him. You know, he's been doing it for a long time, and I really respect him putting himself out there and giving him a crack. But he's definitely a very very mature twenty two year old. You know, he's I personally, if I didn't know his age, I
definitely wouldn't have said twenty two. Again, age is just a number, and it's more so out your experiences and stuff like that. And I tell you what, Tommy, he holds himself really well for a twenty two year old bloke and you know he's obviously here for a reason and wanting to find that person. Good on him, And yeah, I guess everyone after watch and find.
Out, you know, the one thing I just want to like, I'm getting close to finishing my questions, but you need to help me out with this. The show always has these farmers in the plain shirts and the a kubra hats. Is that actually how you dress on the pineapple farm where you're from? I mean, the look is amazing. It makes you look very much like you've stepped off the set of Legends of the Four with you know, you
all look kind of like Brad Pitt. Is that that the sort of clothes that you're wearing on the farm or a Channel seven styling you up a little bit?
Yeah? Look, I definitely normally covered in a lot more grease and oil and stuff you probably wouldn't recognize if I was walking down the street. Yeah. Like I said, the cameras are damn.
Good, is it? Aaron Williams?
Do do you go walk away with an Aaron Williams contract at the end of this, because I guarantee you for you personally, you know, probably one of the best looking farmers that we've ever in on the show. I'm assuming that brands like that are going to come for you. Would you ever find yourself, you know, doing a brand deal with someone like that.
Oh look, if I and Williams wants to throw me a pair of boots, I'm absolutely not going to say. I think they're damn expensive.
No life insurance on them.
I've been told so, Like, you know, that's a pretty expensive boot and a good boot to have.
Oh yeah, well, I've got a pair of them, and I don't know. Sometimes I worry about wearing them. It's three hundred dollars in each. I never spend that much money on cloth.
But they've got insurance on them.
Like take them out and scuff them up, because you can take them back to the store and they'll fix them. It's a pity that Durren Williams don't make women, you know, they could do the same thing after wearing and tearing them a little bit.
Anyway.
That makes me sound terrible. Scratch that from the podcast. Scratch that from the podcast.
Don't put my name in front of that cop.
I think I walk away looking bad from that, you know, But it's actually been so lovely to chat with you and get to know you a little bit better, because I think, like a lot of Australia, I'm so excited to see how this show is.
Going to go.
Before I'll let you go, there's something I ask everyone who joins the podcast, what is something from behind the scenes, something kind of like a behind the scenes secret on what it's like to make Farmer wants a wife?
For me? Personally, I would say difficult. You know, I would have to obviously run run my farm while also filming, and you know, I'm harvesting pineapples and spraying and all of that, and you know, I've got you know, a crew of you know, fifteen or so guys at certain points, so just managing that, you know, you got to jump up and you know I'd work, you know, really late in for the evenings, you know, a lot of the
time till two or three in the morning. Then I'm back up and trying to look presentable in front of a camera, having a coffee with the girls in the morning, you know, and and just keeping the whole business side of things going. It's I guess, yeah, it's just super demanding.
Didn't be ready to.
Think, well, I'm going to be away for twelve weeks. My mind's going to be somewhere else. I need to find another farmer Burt out there and get him to fill in for you. Ah.
Look, it's I guess I'm a little bit of a control freak, and there's there's certain things that I can't let go of on the far under. I guess that more so the you know, really really important jobs that you can't buger up most definitely. You know, I had my brother helping me out and he doesn't even work on the farm, so he would do some spraying for me, and obviously my mild man he carried it for me there for a long time. And I've got a farm manager and he you know, sort of manages all my
employees and that during the harvest thing. But like I say, just those really important jobs and stuff, but you just can't leave or you're not ready to let go of yet. I don't like to be able to blame somebody for something that's gone wrong, even though that might not be the direct cause of it. But for me personally, I know that if I've done all the spraying, and I've done all of this, that's the important part I can only blame myself if it doesn't go comeing out of the way that I wanted it to.
I'm just ticking off a little red flag here.
You did say you're a control Frank might want to let some of the ladies know not.
In any other part of my life other than in my business. Let's just take that part clear. Other than that, I'm a very laid back.
Guy because I love that I'm always trying to doupe you into something that you actually don't believe at all. But I appreciate the fact that you've jumped in to say no, no, no, I'm not I'm not I'm not co signing on that.
Yeah, yeah, don't don't put my autograph there, mate.
I just want to say thank you so much for being so generous with your time and chatting with me this morning. I have absolutely loved it and I can't wait to watch the show. So good luck with it, and I hope you find it.
Why well, you know I can't give away anything, but you will have to wait and see.
Okay, no spoilers, no spoilers, all right.
I'll let you get back to the plan of spoilers. You get me in troubles