MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Scores of farmers are set to benefit from a resilience farm tour courtesy of Isratech Jamaica this Farmers’ Month, five months after their farms were battered by Hurricane Melissa.

Isratech said select farmers will receive free farm assessments, a quarter acre gravity-fed irrigation system, seedling trays, and germination soils.

Technical director at Isratech Jamaica Arturo Ramirez said 286 farmers applied to be part of the initiative. The farm tour is expected to start today in Top Hill, St Elizabeth.

Chief Executive Officer at Isratech Benjamin Hodara said the initiative forms part of the company’s commitment to Jamaican farmers.

“Agriculture is unforgiving at the best of times. You invest months of work and the margin for error is thin. When a hurricane comes through, it doesn’t just damage your crop, it disrupts entire livelihoods; income stops, the cycle breaks, and the path back is horrible… We are going to the farms, because that is where the work is,” he said at Wednesday’s launch of the farm tour at Isratech’s head office in Kendal, Manchester.

Agriculture Minister Floyd Green said Isratech’s farm tour is a data-driven game changer for farmers.

“They are going to literally visit the farms and do assessments. You know sometimes even if you don’t get any items, just having a technical expert come and look at your farm and tell you how to change something as simple as how you design your farm might give you greater productivity and yield,” he said.

“Because if all of us agree that the climate has changed, then we can’t farm the same way as how we farmed 20 years ago. We have to take what we call a data-driven approach to do more precision-based farming, so we will be doing the farm assessment, helping the farmers in the design of their farms, working with them to put in gravity fed irrigation systems, and also helping you with things like seedlings and fertiliser. The ministry applauds this initiative and I say to other entities that operate in the agricultural space, Farmers’ Month is a good time to embark on initiatives like this that take you into the fields to interact directly with the farmers,” he added.

He said the selected areas can be model farms for communities.

“Yes it is good to tell the farmer what to do, but it is not as effective as showing the farmers what to do. When a farmer can look and see what [another farmer] has implemented and getting better yields, more productivity, and getting more money, then the farmer will [adapt to] change,” he said.

The agriculture minister said the Ministry of Agriculture has seen a welcoming increase in farmers being registered.

“When I just started at the ministry I used to talk about 243,000 registered farmers, now I think we are at 270,000 registered farmers, and the good news as well is that the vast majority are young people. The other good news is that a lot of them are young females who are coming into agriculture,” he said.

South Manchester farmer Georgette Henry-Morgan said the farm tour will benefit her community of Salmon Town significantly.

“The storm brought unprecedented destruction resulting in significant crop loss damage and soaring food prices. Many of us are still recovering and it is clear that our agriculture sector needs support,” she said.

“Initiatives like the resilience farm tour are crucial. Isratech is offering invaluable resources including free farm assessments, free farm irrigation systems, fertiliser and expert guidance. This will undoubtedly enhance our production, improve our resilience and contribute to Jamaica’s food security,” she added.

Chief executive officer at Isratech Benjamin Hodara (right) and Agriculture Minister Floyd Green engage in a discussion during the launch of a farm tour on Wednesday. (Photo: Kasey Williams)