We must make gardening inclusive!
Minorities should be encouraged, says top food producer
DEVON farmer and award-winning food producer Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones MBE, also known as The Black Farmer, has spoken about the importance of allotments and having space to grow your own fresh fruit and veg.
He is also driving a movement to encourage more young people, especially those from ethnic minorities, to take up growing and become involved in rural communities.
His statement comes after the National Allotment Society (NAS) reported a massive spike in allotment interest as a result of the Coronavirus lockdown.
Wilfred was born in
Jamaica and brought up in inner-city Birmingham. He started working in the food industry before joining the BBC’s Food and Drink programme. He later went on to realising his dream farming, buying land near Launceston in Cornwall.
The Cornish community initially called him ‘the black farmer’ and he gave the name to his award-winning range of meat products.
Wilfred has also launched a scholarship scheme that encourages ethnic minorities to find work in rural communities where they are widely under-represented. He was awarded an MBE in the 2020 New Year’s Honours for services for farming.
Wilfred said: “Tending my father’s allotment in Birmingham when I was 11, I made a promise to myself that I’d own a farm one day. To me, that small green patch was an oasis and an opportunity to escape from the cramped two-up, twodown terraced house I shared with my family of 11.
“It took 30 years of hard graft – from leaving school aged 16, to the army. As a child of the Windrush generation, it means something to own land.” He added: “The Government, Ministry of Defence, Church of England all own vast swathes of land and could be doing a lot more to welcome people from diverse urban cultures, but particularly black people, into allotments and ultimately into the countryside.
Waiting list increased ‘significantly’
“Urban allotments provide a fantastic onramp into farming, functioning as ‘farming lite’ for young people who might like to dip their toe in.”
Britain has around 330,000 allotment plots, most of which are the responsibility of local councils, though the National Trust also provides sites. Waiting lists range from six to 18 months and the NAS recommends that local authorities provide 20 plots per every 1,000 households. An NAS survey of authorities in spring 2020 showed that many had seen a ‘significant increase in applications to the waiting list’.
Wilfred believes that central government should use allotment growing to help boost food security and acknowledge the role that they play in raising public health and well-being.
He said: “Gatekeepers of pastoral Britain have the power to make a difference and it’s time they were challenged to do so”.
“The allotment was an oasis and an escape”