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Reality TV is so desperate for fresh material that the producers of "American Idol" will descend on Iowa today to root out farmers of the marrying kind.
A new TV show called "The Farmer Wants a Wife" has already harvested big ratings in Europe, and it will debut in an altered version as soon as next fall, reportedly on one of the four major U.S. networks.
Producers will interview Iowa farmers at a casting call today at Miss Kitty's in Clive in hopes of finding just the right rural hunk.
Depending on where they find the guy, the show will film in the area where the farmer lives, said Kimberly Prince, a casting director.
Prince said her team ideally seeks a farmer who's "really outgoing, a hard worker, good-looking, has a heart of gold, who people in town would just describe as the ultimate catch."
As in: "I cannot believe that guy is still single!"
The Des Moines metro is one of only four cities in the search. About 30 farmers auditioned Oct. 29 in Lubbock, Texas - a lower-than-expected turnout, but farmers there were busy with the local cotton harvest.
The show also visited Lincoln, Neb., on Friday and heads to Springfield, Mo., Nov. 10.
Cities were chosen based on statistics such as farms per capita and size of the agricultural economy, Price said.
Not to mention that the show's chief producer, Julie Uribe, is a Nebraska native and no stranger to the Midwest.
The show is based on "The Bachelor" model and its spin-offs.
Once a farmer is selected, producers will look for potential farm wives he can assess before making a final choice.
Dave Struthers, 39, of rural Collins is a farmer. He has been married twice, initially at 23 and less than two years ago for the second time. Struthers and his current wife, Elaine, who lived in Texas, met on the online dating service www.eharmony.com.
Struthers hopes the show helps "expose a lot of people to what farm life is like."
"Ten hours is a pretty slow day," he said of the 9,000 head of hogs and 1,000 acres of corn that kept him mostly out of circulation on the singles scene.
The only woman he might see all day on his farm is a "chemical rep with a summer intern job."
Farm couple Doug and Barb Murra of Buffalo Center met more than 30 years ago, "believe it or not, at the local bowling alley," said Barb, who grew up in nearby Titonka. "That's where the young people hung out in 1976."
Today the couple's son, Josh, 21, has joined the family farm and finds the local dating scene less than robust. There's the First Street Bar or the Old Wagon Wheel in Buffalo Center or an occasional street dance.
Josh was in a relationship that "kind of fizzled out" a month ago.
Then again, he will be busy with the daily harvest routine from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. until later this month.
His peers? "Right now, a lot of them are getting married," he said. "A lot of them were at college."
Kenny Chesney's hit country song "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" promotes an image of the farmer as irresistible stud and chick magnet. But Iowa statistics tell a different tale: Rural singles are a growing demographic group.
The percentage of never-married Iowans outside incorporated towns grew from 14.6 percent to 19.3 percent during the 1990s, according to the U.S. Census. Nearly 75 percent of those over 25 in rural Iowa are men.
It's the crowd that flocked to Jerry Miller of Beachwood, Ohio, after he launched an online dating service tailored to farmers, called www.farmersonly.com. More than 40,000 people have registered and posted profiles.
Miller, 53, developed his Web site after spending a decade working at a public relations firm for thousands of farms nationwide and encountering loneliness at every turn.
The service's slogan is "City folks just don't get it!"
"The big difference is the amount of hours people are working, and there's not that many people around," Miller said.
He also contrasted the "good, old-fashioned traditional values" of rural folk with the more urban tone of "Sex and the City" and "Desperate Housewives."
In 1998 PBS premiered a heartfelt documentary, "The Farmer's Wife," that served as an in-depth, gripping exploration of one real Nebraska couple's struggle to keep their family farm afloat.
"The Farmer Wants a Wife" is not that sort of TV. This is a search for fresh meat and a bumper crop of ratings.
But before farm-boy lust sweeps the nation - visions of swarthy, shirtless men baling hay - maybe we should consult farm wives for a reality check.
Jodi Frederick, 32, lives near Bagley with her husband, Dan, and their two children. The rustic life does not automatically equal more time for each other or the family.
"If he doesn't go out and do chores, then things don't get fed, crops don't get harvested," she said. "I end up doing some things on my own with my kids, and that's just the way it is. People need to realize that before they get into it, I guess."
Frederick also cited "instability of income" as a less-than-romantic fact of farm life. Dan works full time at the local Fareway supermarket to supplement the family's income.
Barb Murra summed up the allure of male farmers as "hard workers."
"I guess that was my main attraction," she said. "And I love the outdoors, and I wanted to be with somebody that loved the outdoors and the animals, turning up the dirt."
Whether or not "The Farmer Needs a Wife" film crew ends up in Iowa, we can expect to enjoy a fresh round of agricultural puns during the show's run on prime-time TV. It's already begun.
One blog riffing on "The Farmer Wants a Wife" led with this crack: "Old MacDonald had a farm, but apparently no one to share it with."
A newspaper in California observed, "The idea is to find men who spend so much time plowing the field, they have no time to play it."
The show's producers phoned Iowa Farm Bureau public relations manager Laurie Groves nearly a year ago and peppered her with questions about Iowa farm life.
"Talk about a cattle call," Groves said of today's auditions. "Hey - there's your headline!"
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