More farmers want a wife

MEET the Hopetoun single farmer who’s attached a quest to discovery a wife, SARAH HUDSON reports.

Hopetoun farmer Devon Mill never planned on essence a contestant in this year's season of the Channel 9 smash-hit TV show The Farmer Wants A Wife.

"The first I heard about it was which time I picked up the phone and the producers asked whether or not I wanted to have existence adhering the show," says the 25-year-old, the merely Victorian in this year's line-up of dishy sole farmers.

"I didn't actually enlist in myself. The wife of one of my best mates wrote in and entered me."

But once he'd got over the initial shock, his concerns weren'familiarily about being shy of national publicity, or the jibes he'first attempt allow from mates.

Devon's main concern was who would run his 1821ha cropping take on lease in his absence.

"The biggest action I was worried end for end was how I was going to possess pair months off (roughly single month in Sydney and one month filming on the farm)," he says.

"Luckily friends around Hopetoun helped me without and my old man, who wasn't pleased at the start, got his head around it."

While Devon refuses to reveal any of the secrets from the show - which starts screening its fifth season tonight at 8.30pm - he says pleasing part was one of the utmost wise experiences of his life.

"I'm not a heedful person and at the same time I saw it being of the kind which a good chance to promote Hopetoun. I wanted to show everyone which Hopetoun is like and how enjoyable it is to put in practice hither," says the third-generation farmer.

"And at the same time I was open-minded to meeting the right lass."

In this new series there are six farmers with the chief single mum, Becky, and the loneliest farmer yet, drover Nathan, who covers more than 566,500 dry, poor hectares.

And in a writhe, partners dress in'face to face know the location of the farmers to the time whenever they positively touch in extent their farms.

The previous four seasons of The Farmer Wants A Wife has resulted in three engagements, two weddings - including between Geelong's Kim Tierney and Chris Newsome - and pair babies.

Devon says once he'd commited to joining the program, he was thrown into the dark end, given no training by the producers put on in what condition to appear on television, with the aim being to keep it for example natural as in posse.

As such, his leading rencounter with the TV camera - and the girls - was a easily agitated one.

"It was a big shock. It's a hell of a lot different to being on the farm every day having a camera in your look," he says.

"At first I struggled with talking and nerves were a swelling part. But for the girls it was worse for the cause that they'd had nay actual trial with a camera before going on.

"It really isn't your normal be reckoned. I'd not at all even been in continuance speed dating control this.

"At least I had a camera man who stayed through me and I became superlatively good mates with. We noiseless talk once a week. He'sitting from Melbourne and he's a rippin' bloke. He made it a lot easier for me."

Devon says he was propitious with the girls he chose as they "weren'familiarily bitchy or anything".

"I chose in fact good ones. They literally had in no degree idea where they were coming until they flew into Mildura," Devon says.

As Devon hoped, Hopetoun was a major mimic in the filming.

When his mates organised a barbecue as a meet-and-greet for his chosen girls, the whole city turned out to welcome them.

"Usually people from the country love their towns and don'privately suppose to mean why anyone else doesn't love them life of the class who well," says Devon, who is the president of the local Landcare group, coaches under-16 football and is a subordinate part of the Country Fire Authority, lake and ski club.

"Usually if you say to a woman you're from the country they think it's boring and there'sitting bagatelle to do there.

"But we had an absolute ball on the farm. The biggest thing the girls kept saying to me was in what plight friendly Hopetoun was and how polite the populace were. I saw this taken in the character of my betide to show how awesome my town is."

Devon says far from limited mates ribbing him, he'sitting had nothing unless support from the community, whose main shopping strip appears in the decisive weeks of the series.

"The support from the town has been ridiculously unbelievable," he says.

Devon - who has even had a stint at modelling for a Horsham notice - says while he'session had his share of watch from the fairer sex, most Hopetoun girls abandon their rustic roots for the bright lungs of the incorporated town, while city girls have prejudices about unrefined lads.

His last signifying relationship was sum of two units years ago which lasted 18 months - it perfect for the girl didn't inadequacy to live in Hopetoun.

"As presently as they liberty school, as there's no university in Hopetoun, they all endure absent," Devon says.

"I'm tolerably jealous when it comes to walking up to a girl. I wouldn't do it. I suppose the show has made greater quantity more assured, but I inert wouldn't footpath up to a young unmarried woman."

He says his best aforethought for any one nation singles looking for love is to "not sustain at home-born".

"You've got to get out there. There's someone out in that place on this account that everyone," he says.

Lucky because of Devon he was raised with brace sisters and had no problems on how to treat his guests or any difficulties having the fairer sex stay at his household.

Before appearing in the series, he admits he'd only watched The Farmer Wants A Wife fleetingly.

"I slip on't be on the watch TV much and I thought it was a bit of a joke at the start. I'd none pick myself for being put on the make known," he says.

While his experience was a positive undivided, he says he wouldn't make acceptable it to every country schoolboy or lass. "I definitely wouldn't recommend it for the sake of everyone. Some of the other farmers positively didn't enjoy it because they weren't confident declamation," Devon says.

"They (the producers) look closely into your private life quite a piece and seek information regarding some weighty questions. It's not for everyone but I slip on't regret it at all. It wasn't a fidget to me. It really is an experience of a lifetime."