22/09/2024
Twenty years after the start of the first season, KRO-NCRV’s Farmer Wants a Wife farewell to a tradition. The six farmers that Yvon Jaspers introduces to the viewer on Sunday evening on NPO 1 are also the farmers who will go speed dating in the spring, host a guest week and finally go on a romantic weekend away. The dropping of the farmers who received the least letters is therefore a thing of the past.
“We already did it this way in the international editions of Farmer Wants a Wife, and it actually worked out really well,” Jaspers tells the ANP. “It was really nice that the number of letters didn’t matter there. That it doesn’t matter how introverted you are, how shy or how easy you talk. We’ll keep following you. And we’re doing that now in the Dutch, regular version of Farmer Wants a Wife.”
Jaspers is not relieved that she no longer has to go to farmers with few letters to tell them that they will not be followed any further. “No, because often those farmers didn’t mind at all. They were actually happy! They thought: I do have letters, but I don’t need to be on TV,” Jaspers laughs. “And there were seasons when people with two letters were more likely to have a nice match than farmers with a thousand letters. So it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t really mean anything!”
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Less letters
Whether fewer letters are written to farmers in the program in general than before, Jaspers finds “difficult to say”. “We last had an international version and then the letter writers have to overcome many more hurdles. And it is also quite different, whether you write to Drenthe or whether you have to emigrate to Slovakia. So that is not really a good comparison.”
Shivering
The presenter does think that the role of social media has become greater over the years in people’s decision to write to a farmer or not. “And rightly so,” says Jaspers. “Because if you appear on TV, you can get criticism. And I understand very well if people don’t want that. So the world has changed too. I think we are all a bit more hesitant to share things. Because then you are very vulnerable. But with all this in mind, I think it’s fantastic that so many farmers are still signing up.” Jaspers hopes that many people will also write. “And that we find love six times. I hope so.”
