Who’d be a farmer? Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon is great entertainment but it also gives some indication of the stresses and challenges behind the farm gate. Would anyone who lacked the significant alternative income that Clarkson is lucky to have want that? Well, actually, yes.

I’m an entrepreneur who owns a farm, as opposed to hands-on running the small one I bought 25 years ago, but as I look around the industry, I’m struck by a significant fact: the very reason I can be known as the Black Farmer is because I am such a rarity that it makes me readily identifiable.

Because of what I do, people – many of them British minorities – often ask me how they can be farmers, how they can secure some land and set up for themselves. Don’t be surprised at that: among Britain’s minorities, millions have rural origins in lands abroad. It is a mistake to see people of colour as intrinsically urban – my own origins are in rural Jamaica. But when they ask me, I can’t really help them. There is no obvious route for them to follow, and there is precious little land they could possibly farm. This is the reality. In 2025, when Defra completed its most recent survey of principal farmers and holders in England, it found 99.7% of those who responded self-described as white.

I’m aware of the........

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