Farmer left in abandoned, freezing town without food and water for TV show — SkimNews
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- Ioan Humphreys, a 33-year-old farmer from Carno in mid Wales, was dropped into an abandoned American town with no food, water, electricity or tools for Channel 4's new series "Apocalypse."
- The Channel 4 show, airing Sunday at 21:00 BST, tasks two groups of strangers with surviving a site usually used to train military, competing for limited resources as temperatures dropped as low as -12C.
- Humphreys told BBC Wales he had "zero idea" what he was getting into and was only told it was a survival show about a month before filming, arriving with nothing but the clothes he was wearing.
- His farming background — taking over the family farm at 20 when his father became ill and managing six staff — gave him fire-starting and resourcefulness skills, and he naturally took on a caretaker role for his group.
- The two groups met after four or five days into the challenge, leading to direct conflict over resources, with Humphreys saying he was "quite heavily involved in the contact."
- The experience prompted Humphreys to rethink his priorities, telling Channel 4: "What's the point in working forever and missing your children grow up?"
Why it matters: Producers specifically approached Humphreys because of his farming background, suggesting Channel 4 is recruiting real-world skill sets over celebrity contestants for the series. His post-show reflection on missing his two young children's childhoods signals a personal recalibration about rural work-life priorities that may resonate with other self-employed farmers.
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