City kids find farm life 'smelly and hard work'

By Tim Platt


This country life: Pig farmer Andrew Freemantle of Kenniford Farm took part in a Channel Four TV programme which brought inner city youngsters to the countryside.

A TELEVISION audience of millions will be looking at a farm in Clyst St Mary soon in a programme about a project for inner city youngsters tackling life in the country.

Kenniford Farm joined sites across the south-west to host teenagers from Birmingham and Liverpool for the eight-week summer project.

The as-yet-untitled programme ls due to be screened on Channel Four later this year.

The six inner city youngsters, aged 18 and 19, spent four days mucking in and out at Kenniford Farm under the guidance of boss Andrew Freemantle.

Mr Freemantle, 36, a pig farmer for 11 years, said his big city visitors got to grips with farm life despite a few countryside culture shocks.

He said. "They weren't too bad. They were just kids being kids.

"They thought the farm was smelly and hard work, and they thought certain aspects of my job were disgusting, but it's just things that they didn't know about

“It was certainly an eye-opener, for me as well as them.”

The fact-finding farm mission for the youngsters was staged as part of a scheme founded by westcountry farmer Wilfred Jones.

Mr Jones, a black dairy farmer from Launceston, began the project after moving from the Midlands to take over the smallholding.

He has since established the young people's city to countryside scheme with hosts this year including Powderham Castle.

Mr Freemantle added: “His idea was that he wanted to give young black children the opportunity that he had, to work an the countryside and to see what it was like.

Footage from Kenniford Farm is due to feature in the programme when it hits the screens in the near future.

But Mr Freemantle, who also runs a farm shop in St Johns Road, Exmouth, is still unsure whether his farm will play a starring or supporting role.

He said: “1 don't know what they will show of the farm.

“I could be on for 15 seconds or 10 minutes, we will wait and see. It’s all in the editor's hands.

Publication: The Exmouth Journal
Publication date: November 10, 2005