Applications have now closed for 2010.

I am really proud to have started The Black Farmer Young City Farmers scheme and am very pleased to announce the dates for the 2010 scheme. The course will run from 23rd August to 3rd September 2010.

Based on my original Scholarship scheme launched in 2005 and filmed by Channel 4 “Young Black Farmers”, I passionately believe that young people living in the UK’s urban jungles are not yet considering life in the countryside as a viable option.

My own personal experience has taught me that by exposing ‘hardcore urbanites’ to the rural environment, it can trigger a deep seated affinity with the land. When this happens it opens up a huge amount of options to someone who may have thought they were headed for life’s dustbin heap. My own experience working on my father’s allotment in inner city Birmingham gave birth to my dream to own my own farm, which I fulfilled some 40 years later.

The aim of the scheme is to introduce these young people to the excitement of farming and land management through a range of practical and challenging activities – from milking a cow, to growing vegetables, fishing, tractor driving, dry-stone walling and exceedingly interesting cooking.

The scheme will offers young people the chance to participate in the programme. With little or no experience of the countryside, participants will need to be excited by the opportunity to learn rural skills and willing to face challenges in a countryside environment. Participants will have the drive to share new activities, work as part of a team and explore the opportunities that the food and farming industries have to offer.

Entrants must be aged 16 to 25.

Read about how past partipants have got on here.