Sheldon McPherson (left), a RADA Agricultural Extension Officer at Lluidas Vale in St. Catherine, explains how information on domestic crops is keyed into a data bank to Ewart Doyley, an employee at the RADA office in Linstead, St. Catherine. - Contributed THE RURAL Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) is developing an Agricultural Business Information System (ABIS) to provide stakeholders in the industry with data on crop production and marketing.
The computer-based information system is estimated to cost over $18 million and should be fully in place by June 2004. However stakeholders will be able to access some information by the end of June this year.
"Over 196,000 agricultural stakeholders are expected to benefit from its implementation," says Douglas Nelson, Manager for Information Technology (IT) at RADA.
He says that ABIS is intended to be the "digital nervous system for agriculture so that we will be able to sense and respond to what is happening in the sector".
The ABIS's primary objective is to develop the capacity and competitiveness of Jamaica's agricultural sector through the use of information and communication technologies. "It will seek to achieve this by providing a comprehensive integrated information service that is verifiable," he explains.
Among those expected to benefit from ABIS are producers/farmers supermarkets, agro-processors, higglers and exporters; farm store, irrigation and tractor service providers; government agencies, commodity organisations, regional and international agencies.
The Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) also stands to benefit from the full establishment of the system which will facilitate the development and operation of an anti-praedial larceny scheme. Under this scheme ABIS will provide registration numbers that will authenticate transactions between the farmer and the buyer.
Funding for the development and implementation of the system is being provided with grants from the Ministry of Agriculture, the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), and the European Union (EU) through the Eastern Jamaica Agricultural Support Project (EJASP).
In explaining the need for the establishment of this 'one stop shop' for agricultural information Mr. Nelson states that a lack of adequate communication between farmers, produce buyers and other key players in the agricultural industry, has resulted in inadequate planning and by extension, an unstable production and market environment, particularly for producers of domestic food crops.
More specifically producers are said to be experiencing difficulties with the marketing of their produce, praedial larceny and climatic conditions combined with inadequate production, and post-harvest and marketing practices.
In addition, operators are faced with poor and inconsistent supply of produce and unstable produce prices, while facilitators are offering inputs that do not necessarily match the needs of producers or the objectives of monitors. Monitors also tend to implement programmes that did not adequately reflect the interests of stakeholders.
To address these deficiencies, ABIS will be providing five different types of information services - a Register Service which will list and briefly describe all agricultural stakeholders; Activity Tracking Service to trace the activities of these stakeholders and track crop availability and prices in key foreign markets; Technical Guide to provide detailed and up-to-date information on production, post harvest and marketing practices and an Analytical Model to forecast agricultural output and prices based on the levels of water, nutrients, field practices and crop protection applied.
Mr. Nelson says that as a result of demand within the industry, ABIS will be expanded to provide a limited trading facility for crops and agricultural inputs, to allow individual farmers and operators to post supply and demand quotes on the web and support automatic matching on the basis of crop quality and price.
ABIS comprises four phases - Project Formulation and Funds Sourcing, and ABIS Pilot Project both of which have been completed; ABIS Stage 1, now underway; and ABIS Stage 2.
The pilot phase was implemented in St. Catherine between December 1991 and December 2001 with the objective of determining the priority needs of the stakeholders. During this phase, a sample of approximately 180 farmers and 40 buyers of farm produce was taken and a core set of services and procedures for field operations developed.
The main benefits of the pilot project were the development of a prototype computer programme, the introduction of new monitoring practices, and the start of collaborative work with key information partners such as STATIN and JAMPRO.
The pilot also demonstrated that farmers primarily needed assistance with marketing and guidance to maximise the use of their limited resources. "For the buyers, it was simply to know where the produce were, when they were available and in what quantity, at what price, and at what grade of quality," he explains.
The implementation of Stage 1 started in April of 2001, and is scheduled to end in June of 2003. In addition to St. Catherine, this third phase is expected to cover the parishes of St. Elizabeth, St. Mary, St. Andrew, St. Thomas and Portland.
Stage 2 will start in the first quarter of next year, while Stage 1 is still being implemented and will seek to develop the remaining services, including foreign produce market information services, for the benefit of exporters. It is also expected to provide comprehensive information on maladies, symptoms and treatments for crops, the cultivation requirements of crops, their post-harvest care, and import and export requirements, among other things. This stage is scheduled to end in early 2004.
Mr. Nelson indicates that since many of the farmers are not computer literate or lacked access to the Internet, they would mainly be able to access information from ABIS through RADA Extension Officers. However, interested farmers can receive computer training at the parish offices. A special project office is being established in each of the RADA parish offices to house the computers in the interim.
"To assemble all of the information for all of the crops and stakeholders is a mammoth task. What we are going to do is build the framework so that the content can be placed in as time goes by," he points out.
