BADMC launches data platform to boost farming

The Barbados Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (BADMC) has unveiled a new data-driven platform intended to improve coordination in farming, boost production and cut the country’s $80m food import bill. 

The Agricultural Statistics Platform is a basic web page which provides information about the operations of the BADMC to farmers, policymakers and retailers.

“You can have access to information on the statistics that have been collected by the BADMC today. As a farmer, you can also, in due course, submit your information,” said acting chief executive Fredrick Inniss at the platform’s launch on Wednesday.

The acting CEO revealed that the platform will eventually allow farmers to submit their own data, but currently it provides basic data which the BADMC collects weekly from supermarkets. 

“Over the course of time, develop the capacity to provide users with a sense of what is due to be harvested, so this harvest forecast allows the individual who may have a question as to what’s going to be available over the coming six weeks to be able to access that.”

This will allow farmers to plan production based on market demand and existing supply levels, he explained. 

The platform is also intended to support contract farming arrangements between producers and buyers, he added.

“I want to contract for the development of Crop X sweet potato for X period, say December 2026. This actually allows one, either a retailer to establish contracts or a farmer to engage on those contracts. So we’ve actually, under our escalation program, established some contract buying approaches. So what you see here is us essentially creating that template. This is what we are seeking to do with farmers over the course of the next 12 months.”

The system would also benefit retailers, restaurants and hotels seeking reliable access to specific crops and varieties, Inniss said.

He underscored the importance of the platform in reducing crop gluts and shortages caused by poor coordination and limited information sharing within the sector.

“I think the solution was actually developed for that very purpose. I think from our perspective, the reports of gluts, the shortages that have occurred, are a direct result of absence of information. No one has a complete idea of what is being grown and when it’s being grown, resulting in everyone turn up at the same time, or no one turn up at all. So very much it is intended to be a response to that, and a planning tool to actually avoid it.”

He explained that the crop escalation programme was also developed in response to those challenges.

Minister of Agriculture Dr. Shantal Munro-Knight said the programme identified 16 crops currently being imported that could instead be produced locally.

“That plan would have identified 16 crops that very strategically that currently we are importing, but we also can produce those crops here locally, and there is a pathway that has been developed around strategic elements of support, so of course escalated, but also, as well as Mr. Inniss would have indicated, as well working through the pack house, developing contracts, and now this tool adds to that, as he would have indicated allows people to be able to plan to know what is required when who is producing what, so everybody can have a good idea.”

The long-term aim is to reduce the island’s food import bill through increased local production and improved coordination between farmers and buyers, officials said.

Dr Munro-Knight stressed that participation from stakeholders such as hotels and restaurants would be critical to the success of the initiative.

“It means again that hotels, restaurants, and others who are now importing x amount of onions and tomatoes, and all of that, can then see what is happening here locally, and that I’m hoping as well that that will allow them to have a mature response, a mature response to how we address the issue of food security and how we assure that we make sure that we support our local farming community as well.”

Inniss revealed that import reduction targets are being set on a crop-by-crop basis as the government pursues the 25-by-25 target of reducing the food import bill by a quarter by 2025:

“We have set those targets by crop, obviously the ones that we can replace immediately, we have worked to say that’s what we’re targeting in year one, something like carrots is a significant hurdle, we’re targeting 50 to 60 per cent in this year with an objective to fundamentally replace imports over the course of the 25-by-25 timeline, just as the indication on the screen, we have sweet potato, the target there is 2.5 million kilograms, so there are specific targets that we have established, and that is what we are rolling out by crop for these farmers.”

Approximately 50 farmers have already been engaged over the past three months to participate in the crop escalation programme.

The BADMC acting CEO also addressed concerns surrounding security and praedial larceny, noting that the platform includes restricted access measures.

He explained that farmers will be added to the platform by invitation only and that verification will involve farmer registration and farm inspections.

“We have I would say a reasonably good sense of who are the farmers that we should be engaging, so that engagement will be by invitation. As I said, once they are able to provide their farmer’s ID, we can go visit their farm and confirm, and if they’re already being captured.”

Additionally, farmers will only be able to access their own production information, limiting unauthorised access to sensitive data.

Inniss also revealed plans for a future mobile app linked to the platform.

“There is a plan of a development path that actually has been set aside, where we’re going to have in due course a mobile app, and there will be some movement on that over the course of the coming quarter.”

Future features are expected to include pest identification using a phone camera as well as expanded AI-driven forecasting and planning tools for farmers.

(LG)