Are you a Pioneer involved in trying to bring about change? Perhaps you are looking for support? Do you know a pioneer who is hiding their light under a bushel? The Black Farmer™ is looking to offer help to individuals who are putting themselves out on a limb to change things. So if you are a pioneer or you know someone who is, contact me by clicking on the button below.

This page will also display details of the great pioneers out there who have contacted me with stories of struggle and triumph in the face of adversity.

I look forward to hearing from you.
 
 

Janet Stott Woodhouse Farm Cottage, York

I work part time along side my husband Andrew at farming, although it really is full time. We produce Dexter meat and sell to the public direct, using 10kg mixed box system. We are producing one Dexter a month for slaughter at the moment and we are monitoring this because we are new. We have put our savings into this business as we believe it will work. Getting people to change their eating habits can be hard but we are doing our best using local advertising. We are getting known and fortunately having parkland grazing it is a real asset.
 
I should have a local breed but nothing other than Short Horn fitted my ideas, and they're maybe too large and I definitely didn't want Aberden Angus - they're to wide spread. I'm also starting a flock of sheep, using Hampshire Down but with mules. Will buy Hampshire Down ewes later. Thank you for supporting the trade!
 

Neil Chadwick General Clothing Stores, Penzance

I read about you in The Independent last Sunday. Congratulations on your success. I am a retailer in Cornwall with 6 shops called Wildlife. We sell outdoor/lifestyle clothing, and thank goodness have grown really well over the last few years, employing about 50 people. But that’s not why I’m contacting you…

A couple of years ago I decided we should design and import our own gear, which meant establishing a supply chain. It was really important that all our gear had a positive affect on whoever was involved. The growers, the factory workers and ultimately the customers. Cotton is a highly pollutant crop, in fact it uses 25% of all pesticides used in the world, and so we made the decision to use only organic cotton.

Through a chance meeting in one of our stores I met up with a visionary guy called Nick Mason, who was really excited about a project he was getting started in Tanzania. He was working closely with the Tanzanian high commissioner in London, and between them they had a mission to change large groups of farmers to organic cotton. They had always grown conventional (using pesticides ) and by switching to organic production practices it would mean higher prices for the farmers. These guys have been in poverty for years - prices of conventional cotton are at such a level that they simply can’t make a profit (partly due to subsidies from the US Goverment to their farmers).

We are now awaiting our first collection using this cotton, bringing in around 90000 units next year. We’ve had great orders through our forward selling and fingers crossed it’s will make a huge difference to the farmers lives. We were in Tanzania last week for the opening of the farm school and its incredible the difference that this project has made. It has given hope for a brighter future, which is something that charity never will.

Our brand of organic cotton is called SEASALT and today I learnt we are the first fashion company to be awarded Soil Association certification. Click onto the image above to link to the website.

 


Liv O'Hanlon,Great Elm Physick Garden, Somerset.

It's a joy to have come across your website. We too are ex-Londoners: we'd spent 20 years and more in Brixton and Vauxhall before coming to the West Country three years ago. We left, like many others, because we were finding London harder and harder to live in: our boys weren't thriving in their schools and my elder son had been mugged three times on his way home from school. It was time to leave.

We found a house with a beautiful walled garden that cried out to become a working herb garden. Sadly, it was far too expensive and we turned our backs on it for months and months. But the lure was too great, especially when I heard about, through our boys' school, a medical herbalist. The house and garden had to be bought - and paid for. So now we're in business making fabulous organic skincare with absolutely no nasty ingredients. Once you start to look at the labels on cosmetics, and find out about each ingredient and the links with illness and skin problems, the more passionate you become about purity.

Our mantra is the old herbalist's theory of 'simples' - to use the best ingredients we can find and to use as few ingredients as possible so that each one can do its job effectively. We like to think of our mission as bottling the English country garden, with all its tradition of beauty, nutrition and herbal remedies. We are, in every way but tasty, good enough to eat! It is a tremendous struggle and after nearly two years, we're still nowhere near making a profit although we've had a lot of good publicity and those who do buy, love our products.

We're finding big business very difficult: banks do us no favours, neither do telecom companies, the Inland Revenue or the thousands of regulations for businesses that are manageable for large enterprises but stiffling for small start-ups. If we don't succeed, not only our business but our home will have to go. So we have to succeed. If you'd like to see what we produce, with our passion for goodness, click on our logo to visit our website. We hope you enjoy it and want to buy. Oh, and incidentally, we are also committed to giving a portion of profit (should we make any) to caring for kids without families. They need nurturing too.