History Channel Following Farmers for a Documentary Series

The agriculture industry typically looks at documentaries about American agriculture with more than a little trepidation. However, the History Channel says it’s putting together a documentary about American agriculture with no agenda in mind. The TV channel and BobCat Studios is working on an eight-part series tentatively titled “The American Farmer.” While the show is still in development, the current plan is for cameras to follow five farming families throughout the planting, growing, and harvesting seasons. The series will be filmed in locations across the country, ranging from New Hampshire to Tennessee to Alaska. Jeff Brick is in charge of the series for the History Channel. He says, “One of the things that BobCat Studio founder Thomas Beers likes to say is “most documentaries are told from a certain point of view, and those points of view rarely seem to be the farmers.” The production team recently spent time at the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky, trying to get a sense of what American farmers were about. Brick called farmers, “Heroic people who are gambling everything, risking everything every year, taking out huge operating loans, trying to control Mother Nature, and still put food on the table for all of us.”