Clarendon farmers embrace technology

Scores of Clarendon farmers have been using an innovative, locally developed technology platform, Revofarm, to boost their produce sales while strengthening their climate- smart agriculture practices.

Revofarm technology provides weather, market and field data via SMS and a web application. It allows farmers to access high-resolution weather forecasts, agronomic tips, and information on climate-smart agricultural practices, and compare specific crop prices at three of the major markets in Jamaica – Coronation in Kingston , May Pen, and Linstead.

“The prices were always accurate and you can depend on the accuracy of the weather forecasts as well,” said Kemoy Clarke, a farmer from the community of Top Alston in Clarendon.

“You would know how much crops cost and how much money you could make, even before going to the market. And you could decide where to go based on which one had the better rates,” said Clarke, who currently has sweet potato crops, but also plants Scotch bonnet pepper and pumpkin.

Clarke’s colleague farmer Ripton Weir also spoke highly of Revofarm’s market-pricing feature.

“The plus for me is the prices,” Weir said. “Without it you wouldn’t get a true reflection of farm produce prices in the markets.”

The farmers were introduced to the technology under the Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Change project.

The project, which is financed by the Community Disaster Risk Reduction Fund of the Caribbean Development Bank and implemented by the Environmental Health Foundation, got off the ground last summer.