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Sweet potato is a staple root crop produced for domestic and export markets by over smallholder farmers in Jamaica. The Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) reports that St. Ann has the largest concentration of sweet potato farmers (2,187) followed by Trelawney (2,046), St. Elizabeth (1,587), and Manchester (1,525) in that order.
From the perspectives of enhancing farm and rural income, climate change resilience, nutrition, food security, foreign exchange earnings, and value-added production, sweet potato offers immense potential for investment.
Agridiscovery Foundation has completed a detailed financial feasibility assessment for the implementation of a 50-acre sweet potato farm and a small chips making factory. The assessment shows good financial indicators of cash flow and returns on investment at the primary and value-added production stages of the value chain. These financial indicators assume application of drip irrigation, use of organic mulch, reduced fertilizer, minimal chemical use, good farm accessibility and low levels of post-harvest loss.
Agridiscovery has prepare an investment profile of a business model that has clusters of trained rural women and youth entrepreneurs operating on a year-round basis primary and value-adding sweet potato-producing enterprises.
The target is to have (in the short to medium-term) a minimum of 100 acres under cultivation, servicing the needs of exporters and an agro-processing entity that produces two sweet potato value-added products.
Private and public organizations and donor agencies are targeted sources of investment. The project’s start-up date is the first quarter of 2026.
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