The series documents Clarkson's attempts at running a 1,000-acre (400 ha) farm near Chipping Norton in West Oxfordshire.

Described by Clarkson as "genuine reality television", the series has received positive reviews and has been praised for raising public awareness of the British farming industry on the international stage.

Jeremy Clarkson bought about a thousand acres (400 ha) in 2008, including Curdle Hill Farm.

[27] Joel Golby, reviewing for The Guardian, found Clarkson's verbal signalling of his jokes by lowering his voice tiring, but the format, in which his blunders are corrected by no-nonsense country folk, works well, "It's simply, just … really good TV".

She was tired by Clarkson's role as an ignorant buffoon and called the show "wearisome, meretricious rubbish … The series amounts to less and less as time goes on.

She liked the supporting players, such as Kaleb and Charlie, and that "Clarkson’s gone soft, and it makes for surprisingly good viewing.

She especially liked "…some of rural England’s more surprising characters … Clarkson’s Farm features some unique types that are rarely spotted on screen.

"[18] Hugo Rifkind, reviewing for The Times, likes Clarkson's "honesty of self" and appreciated both the good fun and the increasingly earnest engagement, "…you get to watch a familiar face grow smitten with his new life, coming to understand the responsibility of feeding Britain … a quite lovely documentary series about life on a farm…"[30] Marty Meany reviewed Clarkson's Farm for Goosed.ie, describing Jeremy as a "grown man playing Farming Simulator in real life", but whether you "love him or hate him, Clarkson's Farm sees Jeremy return to his very best" after years of creating "blatantly scripted" television.

The restaurant in a converted barn was forced to close and the planting of trees to screen a car park was denied.

[38] To address the concerns about capacity, Clarkson bought a nearby pub/restaurant on the A40 trunk road and opened this as The Farmer's Dog in 2024.

[42] The ratings for the first series were not available since Barb only started measuring viewership for on-demand video platforms such as Amazon in November 2021.