Farmers urged to invest in drone technology

Executive Director, Jamaica 4-H Clubs, Peter Thompson, is calling for greater investment in drone technology by players in the agricultural sector.

He said that drones have the potential to boost production by ensuring greater efficiency in operations.

"One of the things we have seen happening, especially with the use of drones, is that an acre of land of crops can be sprayed in three minutes. You can use it to do what is called vegetation indexing, where predetermined data is programmed in the drone for a specific crop. You can fly over that crop and you can use infrared technology to determine what the yield of the crop is like," he said.

"They are using it in Europe for insurance purposes for crops [and] they use it for livestock to determine whether the animal is sick, and you need to pull them out of the herd and so forth. We have to embark on a path to bring technology to agriculture so that the days of the hoe and machete... will be extinct," he added.

Thompson was speaking at the launch of the Kingston and St Andrew 'Agrofest 2024' at the Rural Agricultural Development Authority's St Andrew Parish Office recently.

The event, being staged by the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) will take place on May 25 at the Hope Gardens complex of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining. It will feature a farm queen competition, Jamaica 4-H Clubs speech contest, concert, and a JAS 'Eat Jamaican' cook-off.

There will also be a domino contest, horticulture display, high school exhibit, a small ruminant display, a kids' village and a greased pig competition.