‘Frustrated’ city girls look for love in the country on ‘Farmer Wants a Wife’

Porschia Paxton, 29, an accounting assistant, from a mid-sized city in Texas, got tired of striking out on dating apps.

So, she went to the country to find a good man.

“It’s definitely the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” Paxton told The Post of rural living. “This is out of my comfort zone.”

Paxton is one of 32 young single women featured on Fox’s new dating show “Farmer Wants a Wife,” premiering Wednesday, March 8 at 9 p.m.

On the first episodes, all of the ladies, who are from cities across the US, meet their eligible bachelors: Hunter Grayson, 31, a cattle and horse rancher in Watkinsville, Georgia; Ryan Black, 32, a horse trainer and breeder in Gastonia, North Carolina; Landon Heaton, 35, a cattle rancher and farmer in Stillwater, Oklahoma; and Allen Foster, 32, a cattle rancher in Santa Fe, Tennessee.

The farmers: Hunter Grayson, Ryan Black, Landon Heaton and Allen Foster, right.

Then, each of the four men select a group of the women they’re most interested in and host them back at their ranch. It’s essentially “The Bachelor” by way of “Yellowstone” — with plenty of potential for fish-out-water moments.

“I have no farming experience,” Paxton said. “I went camping once in middle school, but that was it.”

But, she’s definitely interested in potential romance with a man who works the land.

“Whenever I think of farmers, I think of hardworking men who are family oriented,” she said. “That’s also me. So, that sold me.”

For Sydney Groom, 22, a music booking agent living in Nashville, Tenn., being on the show wasn’t as much of a culture shock as it was for some of the other women.

“I have an agriculture background. I grew up showing livestock, I showed pigs until I graduated high school,” Groom, who grew up in Dixie County, Fla., told The Post.

“It gave me a basis to relate to the farmers. I get what your day-to-day looks like. When you show pigs, you raise that animal from a piglet all the way until it walks into the arena and then off to market. You have to feed it, water it, walk it with a cane in the arena, and practice walking that pig – [and] sometimes they don’t want to walk for you.”

Groom said the dating scene in Nashville can be “frustrating,” so she was eager to look elsewhere and connect with someone on a deep level.

“We have a fun little statistic that there is a 6:1 ratio of women to men,” she said of Music City.

“I come from a Southern family, and morals and roots run deep in Southern tradition and heritage,” she continued. “So, when it comes to dating someone outside of the urban area, it’s refreshing to know that, when meeting my family, [a farmer] embodies everything we believe in, in an unspoken way … Humility, hard work, perseverance.” 

Jennifer Nettles hosting “Farmer Wants a Wife.”
Sydney Groom (right) mingles with other ladies and a farmer on “Farmer Wants a Wife.” Pete Dadds

This is the first American version of a long-running concept that first launched in the United Kingdom in 2001. There have since been a slew of international versions that, according to Fox, have resulted in 180 marriages and 410 children.

The host of the new iteration, Grammy-winning singer Jennifer Nettles, stressed that it’s not your typical dating show.

“I love how authentic it is. I don’t watch reality-based romance shows, but this isn’t what you might be used to,” Nettles, 48, told The Post. “This isn’t people who want to be Instagram influencers. This is real people looking for real love.”

It might even get a bit too real. While Groom can’t discuss what actually took place on the show, she shared that the safety waivers she had to sign to go on it raised some eyebrows.

“My doctor was like ‘I don’t feel comfortable signing a form saying you could potentially ride a bull,’” she said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know if I feel comfortable with that, either!'”