The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Saturday
‘You’re always an immigrant until you own land’
Having put down roots in the British countryside, black farmers are making an impact everywhere from supermarket shelves to Jay-Z videos, finds Tomé Morrissy-Swan
In 2017, just two per cent of black Britons lived in the countryside, according to a study by the University of Birmingham. Many report feeling like outsiders in rural areas, being stared at in country pubs, still pigeonholed as “urban”. The number of nonwhite people working in agriculture is even lower.
Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, 63, therefore, is one of very few persons of colour involved in farming in the UK. In 1997 he bought 30 acres of land in Devon, realising a lifelong dream of owning a farm.
Born in Clarendon, Jamaica, Emmanuel-Jones moved to Birmingham aged three, along with his parents, as part of the Windrush generation. He describes a childhood in which racism was rife and life was a struggle. “We were very poor, 11 people living in a terraced house, three to a bed, two double beds in one room. My mother had to try to feed 11 people with one chicken. Even to this day I’ve got a fetish for chicken bones, because I was trying to get every bit of nutrition out of the bones.”
Unlike many inner-city children Emmanuel-Jones had access to nature, thanks to his father’s allotment, where he grew an array of vegetables, including Jamaican varieties. “Being in an environment where you’re with nature, watching things grow, in a sense it became my sanctuary,” he says. That environment provided inspiration for him to, one day, own a farm.
After short spells in the Army and as a chef, Emmanuel-Jones became a producer at the BBC, working with the likes of Gordon Ramsay and James Martin. He then launched a marketing agency, helping turn Loyd Grossman sauces, Kettle Chips and Cobra beer into household names, enabling him to realise his dream.
The former Conservative parliamentary candidate for Chippenham describes his 30-acre smallholding as “diddly squat” compared with the country’s largest farms. EmmanuelJones confesses to not being the most hands-on custodian of the land. With 40-50 cattle, the farm mostly focuses on dairy or finishing, a neighbouring farmer taking care of much of the labour. “I’m more of a gentleman farmer, really,” says Emmanuel-Jones.
Rather, the move was part of his mission to break down barriers for people of colour. For EmmanuelJones, owning land signifies belonging. “You’re always an immigrant until you own land, especially if you’re a person of colour,” he explains. “When my parents came over they were thinking they were going back to the land they had back home. For me, you can’t really claim you belong unless you put a stake in the ground, as it were.” Though he doesn’t report much racism in the countryside, he admits to once being asked if his polytunnel was a cover for growing cannabis.
“There’s something about owning land. It’s not really about the farming as such, it’s owning land, owning a part of England, it makes you an Englishman. I think the more we see people of colour really getting into areas of the establishment, the more it’s accepted that we’re here.”
Yet hurdles still exist. Farms are largely passed from generation to generation, making it difficult for outsiders to break into the “closed shop”. “The industry is an old boys’ network, it doesn’t want to let in new blood – whether Defra, the National Farmers’ Union, or Cirencester agricultural college. [The industry is] desperate for diversity, for change, but until we do something about that it’s always going to be a closed shop.” In 2006, Emmanuel-Jones took matters into his own hands with an Apprentice-style documentary, Young Black Farmers, where nine contestants competed for an internship. Today, none of them still works in agriculture, according to the Vittles newsletter, and entry into the industry hasn’t become easier.
Nevertheless, Emmanuel-Jones credits “Middle England” with propelling his brand, The Black Farmer, to where it is today – on supermarket shelves. With buyers initially refusing to list his products (Emmanuel-Jones suspects they thought the sausages were only targeted at black customers), it was via county shows that the brand’s viability was demonstrated.
Getting products listed remains a challenge. Last year, a special Black History Month range of sausages, dreamt up after the Black Lives Matter movement sparked into national consciousness, received plenty of pushback (though Emmanuel-Jones singles out Sainsbury’s and Co-op for praise). One retailer requested that the jerkflavoured sausages be switched for apple and cider – “I went ballistic,” says Emmanuel-Jones, who thinks the farming and grocery industries lag drastically in terms of diversity.
The sausages were adorned with inspirational historical figures such as Mary Seacole, the Jamaican nurse who treated British soldiers in the Crimean War, and Lincoln Orville Lynch, a decorated Jamaican-American RAF pilot, and sales raised more than £26,000 for the Mary Seacole Trust and the Black Cultural Archives.
Why does diversity matter? “Nature tells us that if you don’t have diversity, the species will die off, become weaker. Keeping things to a very exclusive group will eventually lead to problems, that’s a lesson from nature. Diversity means you’re happy and open to new thinking, new ideas.”
The pandemic has been tough for Emmanuel-Jones, who has shielded throughout, receiving his first vaccine earlier this month. Seven years ago, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. A stem cell transplant was “absolutely brutal”, and severely compromised his immune system. “Even before Covid, [winter] would have been brutal for me, I would have ended up in hospital with some sort of infection,” says Emmanuel-Jones, who divides his time between the farm and London, where he receives fortnightly treatment at Guy’s Hospital.
Despite the health issues, Emmanuel-Jones’ determination to open doors is resolute, whether through the Hatchery project, where he mentors new entrepreneurs (of any colour) or by increasing visibility of people of colour in food and farming. Yet he hopes, eventually, to be obsolete. Success will come when “this brand will mean nothing, it won’t exist. Being a black farmer will not be exceptional.”