‘Diversity in farming is vital for future of food’
THE Westcountry’s only black farmer has called on landowning institutions to make parcels of land available to people from diverse backgrounds.
Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones MBE trades as the The Black Farmer manufacturing and retailing a range of products including sausages and burgers.
He says landowning bodies like the Church of England should step up to encourage people from non-farming families into the field.
He said: “Historically, in this country, farms and land are handed down through the generations. Pretty much 99% of all farms are farmed by those with traditional farming backgrounds. So it can seem like a closed shop to newcomers from non-traditional backgrounds who want to get into farming.”
And he believes the time has come for change: “There is no other industry I can think of that is more badly in need of shaking up,” he said. “As we try to encourage people to buy more locally and support their local producers, we have a huge opportunity to grow a host of different crops. Having farmers who have their roots in different cultures could be hugely exciting.”
Born in Jamaica, Mr Emmanuel-Jones was a child of the Windrush generation which travelled to Britain in the 1950s. He grew up in poverty in inner city Birmingham, but with a love of his family’s allotment.
As a young boy he dreamed of becoming a farmer. However, he says “it was impossible to find the opportunity to develop this interest.” He added: “Fifty years on nothing much has changed. Many young people interested in food, farming and agriculture do not know where to go to explore and develop their interest.”
At the end of 1999, Mr Emmanuel-Jones finally bought his own farm on the Devon-Cornwall border, which he described as “a day of huge celebration as it had taken me the best part of 40 years to achieve my childhood dream to own a small piece of the British countryside.”
Now 65, he’s on a mission to enable more people from non-farming backgrounds to become farmers. This summer he launched ‘New Faces for Farming’ with Writtle University College. The initiative is a nationwide search to find the future faces of farming. The project looks beyond traditional farming circles to encourage young people from diverse backgrounds to consider farming as a career.
A fully-paid-for residential camp will offer teenagers a taste of farm life and provide opportunities to think about a career in this sector.
Mr Emmanuel-Jones said he believed many of the big landowning institutions, like the Church of England, “should make parcels of land available to people from diverse, non-farming backgrounds.” And while farming is a notoriously tough way of life, he said it was also immensely rewarding. “It is multidimensional. If you follow your passion, then I don’t believe it’s any tougher than any other job that you love,” he stressed.
Last month, he delivered a lecture to the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) entitled “Jeopardy – the Danger of Playing it Safe,” where he spoke about his own life story and his work to increase diversity in the UK’s food and farming sectors. He said: “I am passionate about bringing more diversity to the food and farming industries, but to do this requires courage.”