Breaking new ground—literally

last updated 8 January 2015

United Kingdom

Simon de Bruxelles

Britain has its first black farmer, said Simon de Bruxelles in the London Times. Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, erstwhile of Birmingham, decided to take the fortune he made in marketing and pursue his childhood dream of tilling the land. Now Emmanuel-Jones wants to prove that the head of Britain’s Commission for Racial Equality was wrong in his contention that blacks and Asians feel unwelcome in the English countryside. So he’s started an internship program to bring young black kids from the city to come and work on the farm, helping him produce his Black Farmer brand sausages and sauces. In the eight years he’s been farming, Emmanuel-Jones says, his white neighbors have been nothing but helpful. They taught him how and when to plant his crops, and “they still won’t let me buy livestock at market on my own.” But he cautions that blacks, too, must show some tolerance. “If you object to being called colored instead of black,” he said, “then don’t even bother putting your Wellingtons on.”