HUTCHEON: It’s the annual Devon Show, three days when the people of the West Country defy the fickle weather, bring out their best and revel in all that’s good about country life. Here, when you talk about diversity, it usually refers to the livestock because this part of the country is known as a bastion of white Britain.

Fewer than three per cent of the rural population here are black or other ethnic minorities, but someone is determined to change that. Meet Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones. He came to England as a poor migrant. Now he’s an entrepreneur and aspiring politician and claims to be Britain’s only black farmer.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: More often than not, the image of a black person is as a second class citizen, that is an underachiever, that is a burden on society and I want this brand to be demonstrating that actually that isn’t the case.

HUTCHEON: Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones bought his farm almost a decade ago after a career in television then making his fortune in food marketing, but he wasn’t always destined for success. With high hopes he and his family left rural Jamaica only to land in one of Britain’s most deprived immigrant suburbs.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: [Walking around Birmingham] This part of Birmingham is where the very poorest live.

HUTCHEON: Wilfred’s family of eleven lived in a row of cramped terraces.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: At that time it was full of a lot of people from the Caribbean who had come to this country in the fifties and when they arrived here in the fifties they thought the streets were going to be paved in gold and they thought they were going to be welcomed with open arms but actually what they met was racism, all types of prejudice and a real failure so it was just a small corner of Britain where they could go and lick their wounds as it were.

[outside his old terrace] The front room was a special room so even though there were eleven of us in the family, we were never allowed to go into the front room. It was only for visitors.

HUTCHEON: This is the first time Wilfred has been back since leaving more than thirty years ago and now a new family lives in his old home.

[Meeting neighbour]: My name is Wilfred and this use to be the house that I use to live in.

NEIGHBOUR: No, no.....

HUTCHEON: He’s keen to find former neighbours who might remember him.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: Hi there.

MAN: Hi.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: Hi I use to live over there at 99 Bankes Road.

MAN: Jones?

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: How you doing! I’m Wilfred.

HUTCHEON: And he’s keen to let them know that despite his humble beginnings, he’s now a success.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: The reason why they’re making a film is that I’m the only black farmer in the UK.

WOMAN: So you’re the farmer?

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: I’m the black farmer yeah.

I don’t look back at the time living here with any fondness. I mean it was very very poor and we were struggling and you know I was always hungry. I could always remember being hungry. The expectation for anybody in that community was that you were going to end up in society’s dustbin heap.

HUTCHEON: But in the urban wasteland, young Wilfred discovered a refuge. Around the corner from his home was a council allotment. His father rented a strip to grow vegetables. The allotment is just as it was, so too is the shed his father built.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: [looking at shed on allotment] I would never ever have thought that it would still be here.

HUTCHEON: This is where Mr Emmanuel-Jones first dreamed of owning a farm.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: He was very good at building my dad was but can you imagine, now you’re sort of, you’re here, you feel really free, it was from here that I had my vision that one day I would own my part of England.

HUTCHEON: The allotments were once predominantly leased by whites. Now most of the hobby farmers are black or from ethnic minorities. In Britain black and minority ethnic or BME’s as they’re known, make up 8% of the total population. In some cities like Birmingham, they are one in three people.

In the corner of England he now owns, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is building the black farmer empire. He divides his time between city and country.

Surely you’re not the only black farmer?

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: Well in the UK I am. Well I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean it has been reported to me that I am the only black farmer in Britain.

HUTCHEON: But though he owns fourteen hectares of prime farming land, he admits to being a novice and something of a gentleman farmer like Prince Charles. The hard work is done by his farm manager and neighbour, Chris Budge. Mr Budge recalls the day they met.

CHRIS BUDGE: I heard this guy had bought the farm next door and so I thought it was only kind of manners to go and introduce myself and meet him sort of thing and I went in there and yeah, you know obviously I knew he was a coloured guy but yeah very friendly, jolly and sort of guy that I think, you know I thought well we can get on okay. People have got various views about you know coloured people coming to live in the countryside sort of thing. You know hopefully, you know, they will be accepted.

SONIA FRANCIS-MILLS: [Devon Race Equality Council] I’ve been slapped in the street. I’ve had someone walk up to me and just slap me and say I don’t, we don’t want you here. What are you doing here? We don’t want you here.

HUTCHEON: That’s unbelievable!

SONIA FRANCIS-MILLS: It’s, it’s true. It has really happened and I’ve been spat at. We’ve had dog do’s put through our door at home and I’ve had dog do put through the door at the office.

HUTCHEON: Sonia Francis-Mills moved to Devon ten years ago. She works for the local Race Equality Council promoting diversity. Ms Francis Mills says two out of three black or ethnic rural residents suffer serious discrimination.

SONIA FRANCIS-MILLS: I remember somebody where I live saying you know, why are you here? And I said well I’m here living my life and enjoying the countryside. And they said no, no, no but you know kind of why are you here? People like you don’t come here or shouldn’t come here.

HUTCHEON: But Mr Emmanuel-Jones says in the country, he’s never faced racism.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: People are not racist towards me to my face and I can’t remember the last time somebody was. I mean I’m not naïve enough to think that people are not but it’s never ever done to my face and I think that when you’re successful and when you’ve got money, people don’t see colour. What I say to everybody is do not expend energy on things that are irrelevant. Somebody else’s racism towards you is totally irrelevant to my life because you know, we live in a changing society. Those people have to change with the times or they become relics.

HUTCHEON: At the Devon Show, the black farmer works the crowds. Since launching his brand two years ago, he’s gained a lot of attention. He hopes his growing popularity may improve his chances of becoming a Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party.

MAN: He’d certainly be a very interesting selection definitely for the South West. Whether or not I’d vote for him I’m not sure. I’m not too keen on his sausages so maybe I wouldn’t be too keen on him as an MP either really.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: Coming to live in this part of Britain, you have to have a pioneering spirit about you and that you know you are going to come across some people who are not going to like it. You know some people are going to feel negative about it but when you’re a pioneer, all those things are irrelevant.

HUTCHEON: These people also consider themselves pioneers, perhaps on a different scale. They’re community workers from urban Britain who’ve rarely ventured into the countryside. The outing has been organised by the Mosaic Partnership, a scheme to introduce ethnic minorities to national parks. In this instance, Brecon Beacons in Wales.

JUNIE JOSEPH: They don’t know whether they’re going to be received nicely, they don’t know what to expect and they think countryside no facilities, no amenities, nothing.

HUTCHEON: But what minorities face in rural Britain, isn’t necessarily racism.

JUNIE JOSEPH: Country communities are very close knit so if, even if I were white and I went to a place where I wasn’t known, I would become, I would be looked upon as a stranger.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: It is our right to go and live anywhere that we want to but that has to come from us. We can’t wait to be invited. We have to go and claim it.

HUTCHEON: But there are other pioneers. Foreign Correspondent found another black farmer. Francis Ampofo owns and runs a free range egg farm, which supplies one of Britain’s leading supermarkets.

The other black farmer, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, goes around telling everyone he’s Britain’s only black farmer. How do you feel about that?

FRANCIS AMPOFO: [Farmer] To tell you the truth I’m not actually bothered about it, not at all. I’m not sure whether he knows of me but I actually know of him but if him saying that will improve his business or his image, I’m not going to go forward and say no, no I’m here.

HUTCHEON: Francis Ampofo came to Britain from Ghana when he was in his teens. Not quite five feet tall, he became a champion boxer – bantam weight – retiring from the sport four years ago.

Unlike Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, he’s a hands on farmer packaging nine thousand eggs every day. But like the other black farmer, he believes the sky is the limit.

FRANCIS AMPOFO: For instance my daughter I would love to see her being the first black Prime Minister of this country. I like to be different, I just like to do things that others haven’t done.

HUTCHEON: So you think of yourself as a kind of pioneer?

FRANCIS AMPOFO: Yes, yes the people I look up to are people like Richard Branson. I’ve got in mind that one day I’d love to be Richard Branson of Ghana.

HUTCHEON: Mr Emmanuel-Jones has been nominated for a local food award. Though he may not be a farmer in the true sense of the word, his spiritual home is here in the countryside.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: [Speech at Devon Show] This is an opportunity for me to thank everybody very much for all the support that I’ve had down here and the West-Country as far as I’m concerned is my home. Thank you all very much.

HUTCHEON: There are signs in this conservative corner of White Britain that people are starting to take notice.

ANNOUNCEMENT: The nominees are: Georgy Porgy’s puddings, South Devon Chilli Farm and the Black Farmer. And the winner is the Black Farmer.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: If they’re prepared to vote for me and therefore allow me to win an award, hopefully they’ll vote for me where it really matters i.e. to become their member of Parliament so I hope this is the start of things to come.

HUTCHEON: Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones believes he’s breaking the stereotype of black being synonymous with poor and downtrodden. All that’s left, he says, is for others like him to do the same.

WILFRED EMMANUEL-JONES: This is my home, I’m not going anywhere else. You know gone are the days when the idea of sending them back in the banana boat actually is going to work because there’s nowhere for us to go. So we either make this our home or we spend another fifty years actually moaning and whinging about the treatment that we’ve had and I would say to most black people is that that’s one of things they should make sure they don’t do is become a victim of the past because this is our home.