Can the countryside offer a way out of dead-end urban life?
Young Black Farmers, a three-part series, follows Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, one of Britain's few black farmers, as he takes a group of nine inner-city school leavers from ethnic minorities on a life-transforming journey on his farm in Devon.
In a bid to reverse the segregation in the countryside that has prevented ethnic minorities from settling outside of urban Britain, Wilfred is launching a Rural Scholarship. Young Black Farmers documents the first of his 'rural rookies' during a summer living in a converted barn on Wilfred's remote 30-acre farm and embarking on work experience placements in the local community.
Wilfred has prepared a packed schedule for his students, including 4am starts, buying and selling cattle, sausage making, farmers' markets, tractor driving and a host of other strenuous activities that make up his daily routine. And the stakes are high – if they make the grade, two of the lucky students will be offered a job working for Wilfred.
I don't know if taking poor folks and making them farm in a country where acres are bought by the square foot is a good idea.
Some other observations:
- A black farmer is so rare in Britain that the subject gets its own TV show.
- Considering the state of agriculture in developed nations today, I'm thinking there's probably some other way "school leavers" can use their time to find a job that actually exists.
- England takes kids out of the city and tries to train them to be black farmers. Meanwhile, millions of already trained and struggling black farmers remain unemployed in Africa because Europe, and to a lesser extent the U.S., subsidizes the wazoo out of agriculture.
- "Sausage making." Heh.
(Sorry about the political nature of the last two posts. The upcoming move has me stressed and I'm in a wierd mood.)
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