NOW that it increasingly looks like he’s out of a job, suspended Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson is moving his attention to another idea for a possible top-rating television series — farming.

Sources tell The Times in London that the rural enthusiast wants to do for agriculture what he did for motoring.

“In the last week [Jeremy] has had a chance to firm it up,” a source close to Clarkson told the newspaper.

“It’s about trying to run a farm when you don’t know anything about farming, and ... getting things wrong, in a Top Gear-esque way.”

The 54-year-old host was suspended by the BBC for allegedly punching producer Oisin Tymon during a row which took place after filming, and was again in hot water at the weekend for calling his bosses “f***ing bastards” in an expletive-laden rant at a charity event.

While an investigation into his conduct is under way, friends say Clarkson is already speaking as though he has been fired, and he’s exploring other work opportunities.

His idea for a show that explores the lives and challenges of farmers and people who work in the countryside is something he’s said to be currently developing. It doesn’t yet have a name, but friends have perhaps uncreatively joked Top Tractor could work.

Back in 2012, Clarkson pitched the idea to the BBC’s then director general George Entwistle, The Times reports. It didn’t go ahead because the pair couldn’t agree on a shoot location.

There could be strong interest in whatever project Clarkson moves to next, although he might have trouble striking a deal with the BBC after his rant last week.

“To be in the audience of Top Gear there was an 18-year waiting list,” he told the charity function.

“You know the BBC has f***ed themselves, and so who gives a f***? It was a great show and they f***ed it up.”

During the event, Clarkson also offered one lap around the Top Gear track for auction, Britain’s Mirror reports.

“I’ll drive somebody around in whatever I can get hold of. I’m sacked so it’s probably an Austin Maestro,” he said.

“But anyway it will be my last ever lap of the Top Gear track.”

Writing afterwards in The Sunday Times, Clarkson said it had all been in good humour.

“But it was all meant in jest and anyway it worked,” he said.

“By being brief, controversial and a bit sweary I woke the room up and the auction prize I was offering — one last lap of the Top Gear test track — raised STG100,000 ($193,050).”

Many many thanks to all of the people who have called for my reinstatement. I'm very touched. We shall all learn next week what will happen. — Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) March 20, 2015

A petition to have Clarkson reinstated on Top Gear has gathered almost one million signatures and was delivered by tank to BBC headquarters in London on Friday.

Clarkson tweeted his thanks to supporters but declared in his column in The Sun on Saturday that “protest never works”.

His future at the BBC is likely to be decided this week when the corporation’s internal investigation into his behaviour is handed over to the director-general.