Fair dinkum sheilas so scarce that Poms will do

By GREG ANSLEY Australia correspondent

CANBERRA - Forget drought and bushfire. A new reality TV series is about to focus on the real tragedy of rural Australia - the nation's lovelorn young farmers.

In a vast continent dotted with lonely bachelors likely brides are a scarce commodity as people, jobs and social life cluster in big cities and along the coast.

Now West Australian and British documentary film-makers have imported 12 women from the United Kingdom for Desperately Seeking Sheila, a bush version of the slick city match-making programmes.

Artemis International and Britain's Carlton Productions screened 1200 hopefuls to select 12 women to travel from one of the most densely populated countries in the world to one of the sparsest.

Waiting for them in Perth were six young West Australian farmers who yesterday were scheduled to pick one woman each to take home for three weeks.

"I don't really know that much about real Australian men, other than Neighbours and Russell Crowe strangling people in bars in London," 31-year-old Georgea Blakey told The West Australian. "But what I do know is that they seem to have a sense of humour and an easy-going attitude to life."

Artemis Productions says the "laconic bush humour" of its young farmers will provide a large part of the appeal of the series, being made for SBS Television.

But the company says it will also highlight the serious social problems facing rural Australia.

Society in the bush has been shrinking for decades, with small farms being swallowed by larger neighbours or agricultural companies, and the age of the rural population increasing as farmers keep working longer.

The Bureau of Statistics' latest figures show that the number of young farmers in their 20s has plummeted by 60 per cent since 1976.

Only 70 per cent of men employed in agriculture are married.

"It's a serious problem," said Desperately Seeking Sheila entrant Ashley Lewis, a 37-year-old wheat and sheep farmer from Wickepin, 220km southeast of Perth.

"For a lot of guys it's hard to develop a business - or themselves, really - when they are spending all their efforts trying to find a sheila."