The Clarkson Effect, Measured Properly

UCAS applications from eighteen-year-olds to agriculture and food-related degrees rose to around 9,400, up about twenty per cent on 2019 when they stood at roughly 7,900. The Royal Agricultural University reported course-specific rises: rural land management with placement up eighteen per cent, the foundation degree up fourteen, the three-year BSc up eleven.

Retailers reported spikes timed to episodes. Ocado said lion’s mane mushroom searches were up 482 per cent week-on-week. Waitrose reported British sirloin steak up 193 per cent year on year.

Now the caution. The RAU’s own director of academic services said there was no firm evidence this was down to the programme. The retailer figures are company-supplied and promotional in framing. And the NFU president, asked directly whether Clarkson turning up to a farming protest helped, replied "probably not on this one".

The application data is statistically real at national level. The causal attribution is inferred and genuinely disputed by people in the sector who have no reason to be unkind about it. Both of those things are true at once, and reporting only the first would be dishonest.