St. Elizabeth, Jamaica — In a major milestone for agriculture in the Caribbean, Jamaica has launched its first fully automated egg-laying facility in St. Elizabeth, promising to revolutionize poultry production through cutting-edge technology.
The facility, spearheaded by veteran farmer Osbourne Brumley, houses 20,160 birds in a single building. The system is designed for efficiency and scale, with automation managing every stage of production — from feeding to egg collection to cleaning.
“The only thing you do manually is put the birds in the cage,” Brumley said in an interview with The Foodscapes Collective.
The technology behind the system was developed by Retech Farming, a Chinese company that Brumley discovered while researching online. Two engineers from China are currently on-site assisting with construction and setup. The facility, which measures 250 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 16 feet high, stacks hens in four rows vertically with each cage containing six hens.
Brumley began the planning process in February 2024, when the project was formally approved. Since then, one building has been completed, a second is under construction, and a third is in the pipeline.
“We hope to go to 120,000 birds,” Brumley said. “And, well, we’ll see where it go from there.”
Each building is estimated to produce 55 cases of eggs per day, with 360 eggs per case. This is a significant increase in output compared to older systems. Previously, manual egg collection often resulted in a 10% breakage rate, which the automated setup virtually eliminates.
Brumley’s facility is fully solar-powered, another standout feature that aligns with Jamaica’s push toward sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture. The operation also includes an automated system for manure collection, with plans to use the waste as fertilizer for the coconut fields that will be planted behind the facility.
“It is great,” Brumley said. “I think this is the first fully automated system for Jamaica, and I don’t know if there is anywhere else. We hope to do great things with it.”
The initiative is being supported by both the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) and the Ministry of Agriculture, who see it as a model for transforming food production in the region.
“It’s impressive. It’s just the kind of agriculture that we want to, you know, be assisting and developing to be greater,” says Mark Lee, Parish Manager for RADA, St. Elizabeth. “We love to see it and we want to see more of it in the parish.”
Brumley also expects the project to offer a competitive advantage in the local egg market. Thanks to reduced labor and energy costs, he anticipates a lower price per egg compared to other producers.
“Eventually, after we start operating, we might end up with a lower market price than the rest of the people,” Brumley said. “That would be great for us, because nobody would be able to compete with us.”
With a farming career that began in 1990 and has steadily expanded over the decades, Brumley’s latest venture marks a bold new chapter, with a vision to reshape the future of Jamaican agriculture.
Photos by Joel Matheson
Want more content like this? Subscribe to The Foodscapes Collective to be the first to know about articles like this and more.
The Foodscapes Collective 
Leave a comment