The Great Yorkshire Show 2024

SEM’s volunteer selected as judge at 165th Great Yorkshire Agricultural Show, held at Harrogate from July  9th  – 12th 2024.

Women from the African & District Caribbean Community (SADACCA) and South-East Asian Women from ROSHNI visit The Great Yorkshire Show 2024

The 165th Great Yorkshire Agricultural Show at Harrogate attracted thousands of people with the aim to celebrate British Farming and rural life.

This year’s Show saw SEM taking 37 people from two community groups –  women from the African & District Caribbean Community (SADACCA) and South-East Asian Women from ROSHNI all based in Sheffield. With the support of Yorkshire Agricultural Society  the two groups were offered seats at the Grandstand to enjoy the displays. However, highlight of the Show for the two community groups was when one of SEM’s volunteers was nominated as one of the community judges for the cattle parade. She might have been the first minoritised person in history of the Show nominated as a judge. 

Below are her reflections:

“I was honoured to be appointed as a judge for the 2024 Great Yorkshire Agricultural Show at Harrogate. Overall, this was an intriguing experience being the first person from an ethnic minority background to be a judge. However, the official assisting us judged me based on my appearance. I was chosen together with another lady from another city who was white. While we were paired up, I was not acknowledged which was fine, but it was when he asked how long I had lived in Sheffield which is my hometown I responded by saying, I was born and bred in Sheffield. He immediately changed his attitude and initiated conversation with me but didn’t ask the white lady the same question. This is 165th Show and its distressing to learn that we still live in a society where we are asked where we come from by virtue of our appearance.

This is my fourth time to volunteer with SEM at the Show which has always been predominantly white as you will imagine, and it is therefore great what the YAS is doing by supporting SEM to bring individuals from minoritised communities most of whom their parents or families originally came from farming rural backgrounds. Growing up as a young girl in Sheffield my parents told me about farming back home, however I have not experienced this as city girl. And also, prior to volunteering for SEM, I have only seen the Great Yorkshire Agricultural Show on Television. I think what YAS is doing by supporting SEM is very valuable, important and impactful. The judging experience itself did provide me with an excellent opportunity to observe the different cattle which are mostly native breeds. Although I was grateful to be chosen as judge, I had no idea what I was supposed to be looking for as the best breed, this is because growing up and going to school in Sheffield we didn’t have the opportunity to visit the rural countryside and learn about British farming, we didn’t undertake outdoor learning to include farm visits. I therefore found this quite an exciting experience and hope more young people from minoritised communities will be given the opportunity to experience British farming, and YAS should be praised for all their efforts and support to SEM.”      

Sheffield Environmental Movement (SEM), with support from the Yorkshire Agricultural Society (YAS) has been taking minoritised community groups to the Show to experience British farming for the past 4 years and at the 163rd Show, SEM’s CEO Maxwell Ayamba was the first Black person featured in the Farmer’s Guardian Newspaper (see article)

A newspaper with images of people running

Description automatically generated

The British Agricultural Sector is the least diverse sector in the UK followed by the Environmental Sector.

SEM Founder & CEO Visits Sheffield College

Maxwell Ayamba with Green Party Cllr. Douglas Johnson
SEM’s CEO, Maxwell Ayamba was invited to deliver a talk as part of the launch day of a 10 week long Applied Creativity Lab on Friday 20th October 2023. It is meant to help twenty 16/17 yr olds of Sheffield City College develop new creative thinking skills to enable them to develop new social action/media campaigns to help local environmental groups achieve their goals.
The students would then present their final campaigns to an Industry panel at the end of the project who will offer advice to the students.
Maxwell (seen in this picture with Green Party Cllr. Douglas Johnson) spoke about SEM’s mission to promote diversity within the environmental sector. Maxwell in his presentation explained to the students how although, individuals from Black & Ethnic Minorities were heavily impacted by environment issues such as air pollution, yet have no voice in the decision making process.
 He said the environmental field is the second least diverse sector only after Farming in the UK. Maxwell noted how the lack of efforts by some environmental organisations to diversify their workforce has become so normalised that it has become an acceptable norm not to see Black & Minoritised individuals including young people in that sector.
 It is therefore strange he told the students ” I am not surprised that you weren’t expecting to see a Black man today speaking about the environment with other white people’. Maxwell said SEM is keen to change that narrative in its own small way, by engaging with young people who as the future custodians of our natural environment to become environmental  champions and ambassadors in communities thereby engendering change in communities that are at the mercy of climate change, air pollution and other environmental problems.
 Maxwell told the students that it is therefore acceptable not to see Black & Ethnic Minority individuals in local and national environmental organisations as compared to other sectors such as the Education and Health sector such as the NHS. He pointed out that the natural environment is our “Natural Health Service”, just as the NHS, and yet Black & Minoritised communities are not benefiting from it due to structural inequalities and racism. These structural inequalities have led to an increase in mental health and physical health problems.
Maxwell explained how that has been exacerbated by the lack of accessible quality greenspaces in these deprived communities. He urged the students to design a campaign program that would be used to encourage people from these communities to access green spaces but also the need for the college to promote outdoor learning, citing the work of the Ernest Cook Trust as an organisation promoting the concept of outdoor learning.