Healthy outdoors type, own business, country home with incomparable views, likes animals and organic food, would like to meet . . . well, anyone at all, really.
You could be forgiven for thinking that anybody offering such a delightful prospectus would have potential partners in such profusion that they would have to fend them off with a stick. Yet isolated young farmers in Wales are finding it so hard to meet anyone new that they are looking for love by putting their photographs on the side of milk cartoons.
They hope that the stickers will attract customers who fancy more than a pint.
The campaign started life as a promotion for an organic dairy co-operative but has revealed a sad truth about the modern countryside: it can be a very lonely place. The sharp decline in jobs in agriculture coupled with antisocial hours means that many farmers struggle to enjoy any social life at all, let alone find a partner.
Elen Morris, 23, a farmer’s daughter from Nantglyn in Denbighshire, North Wales, is one of those whose mugshot will appear on the milk cartons to mark St Dwynwen’s Day today — the Welsh equivalent of St Valentine’s Day.
She said: “I was away travelling for a while and I’ve been single since I got back. A lot of people who grow up in the countryside have to move to the cities to find work so there aren’t that many potential boyfriends. But I’m doing it because it’s a bit of fun, not because I’m desperate.”
Iwan Jones, 30, who farms 250 acres near Denbigh, spent two hours at the dairy sticking thousands of pictures of himself on to cartons. Mr Jones is a director of Calon Wen, the organic milk co-operative that started the scheme.
Mr Jones said: “Calon Wen was founded to support family farmers but a quarter of our members are single, which was becoming a bit of a joke.
“The countryside is a great place to live but it can be a hard place to find a date. The ratio of men to women is skewed because a lot of young women move to other areas to find work after leaving college.”
The stickers read “Fancy a Farmer?” and give the address of www.pishyn.com, an online dating agency that will put potential suitors in touch with lonely farmers.
“I’ve just turned 30, an age when you think about settling down,” Mr Jones said. “Unless us young farmers can find wives then we might not have children to carry on our business.”
He says he is not too fussy about who his ideal match might be. “I have no set ideas on what I’m looking for in a partner other than I’d rather she wasn’t too thin. The others are all better looking than me so I will probably be the last carton left on the shelf.”
Sian Williams, 23, is also hoping to find a boyfriend who understands country life.
She said: “I’m a farmer’s daughter but I hope to be an actress. I’ve been to college in Cardiff but I’m still looking for a boyfriend who understands country life. I’ve grown up on fresh milk and I’m one of the healthiest girls you’ll ever meet. I’ve only been single for two months but I hope someone nice will see my face. . . someone tall, dark and handsome.”
Gari Evans, 19, from Saron, said: “The only thing I don’t like is the picture of me on the carton. I’m far better looking than that.”
