About FarmersMarket JA
Jamaica's most trusted marketplace, connecting 8,200+ farmers, fisherfolk and agro-producers directly with buyers across all fourteen parishes.
The Founders
FarmersMarket JA began in 2019 as a conversation between two Kingston-based agritech entrepreneurs who had spent years watching Jamaican growers lose margin to a long chain of intermediaries. Today it is a forty-six-person company with seven regional hubs, twelve former extension officers on staff, and a verification scheme run in partnership with the Rural Agricultural Development Authority.
Co-founder & Chief Executive
A Kingston-born product builder who grew up watching his grandmother trade at the May Pen market. Andre spent a decade building logistics software before turning to the question of why smallholders in St. Catherine and Clarendon kept losing ground to higglers. He leads platform strategy and the regional hub network.
Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer
An operations lead trained in rural extension work, Denise built her early career alongside RADA field officers in St. Elizabeth and Manchester. She oversees vendor verification, the twelve former extension officers on staff, and the parish-level partnerships that make every listing on the platform traceable back to a named grower.
Our founding conviction
FarmersMarket JA was built on a simple observation: across Jamaica, the people doing the hardest physical work in agriculture were the ones keeping the smallest share of every sale. A yam farmer in St. Ann could spend six months bringing a crop to maturity, then watch the margin disappear across three or four handoffs before the produce ever reached a hotel kitchen or a household in Half-Way-Tree.
We started the platform to shorten that chain. Today, verified producers on FarmersMarket JA earn an average of thirty-eight per cent more per harvest than they would on traditional higglers' lane pricing — a finding published in the Jamaica Agri-Bureau's 2024 study. Buyers, in turn, get a single audited record of who grew what, where, and on which date, with a QR code on every listing that resolves to a real farm and a real parish.
This is not an app. It is a procurement route, a verification scheme, and a payroll for rural Jamaica. It exists because Andre Walker and Denise Palmer-Burke believed the country's growers deserved both.
Milestones
Andre Walker and Denise Palmer-Burke launch FarmersMarket JA with eleven verified growers in the Kingston Parish pilot, processing the platform's first orders from a single collection point on Duke Street.
A JM$220 million Series A round led by Portland Private Equity funds the build-out of regional hubs. The Jamaica Agricultural Society formally endorses the platform, and the partnership with the Rural Agricultural Development Authority on parish-level vendor verification is signed.
The platform facilitates over JM$1.4 billion in gross produce sales across the year, with seven regional collection hubs now operating across Kingston, Montego Bay, Mandeville, Ocho Rios, May Pen, Black River and Port Antonio.
Recognised as 'AgriTech Marketplace of the Year' at the Jamaica Digital Awards. Cumulative orders processed since launch cross 2.1 million, and procurement teams at Sandals Resorts, Jamaica Pegasus and Rainforest Foods are onboarded as recurring buyers.
By the numbers
Verified Jamaican farmers, fisherfolk and agro-processors on the platform.
Active SKUs in the catalogue, from ackee to yellow yam.
Orders processed between launch and the first quarter of 2025.
Average delivery time across the platform, order to door.
Staff, including twelve former extension officers serving as vendor success managers.
Regional collection hubs serving all fourteen parishes via forty-one partner routes.
More per harvest earned by producers vs. traditional higglers' lane pricing.
Hotel and restaurant procurement teams buying on the platform, islandwide.
Institutional partners & endorsements
Rural Agricultural Development Authority
Parish-level vendor verification scheme, run jointly since 2022.
Jamaica Agricultural Society
Formal endorsement and grower onboarding through parish branches.
Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries
Featured in the 2024 Grow Smart initiative for digital market access.
Portland Private Equity
Lead investor in the JM$220M Series A round, closed in 2022.
