AS Jamaica’s agricultural sector grapples with local weather volatility and technological disparities, Evergrow Backyard Centre emerges as a linchpin in bridging conventional practices with trendy horticultural calls for.
Based in 1980 by plant pathologist Burrell Scarlett, the corporate has navigated 4 a long time of market shifts, hurricanes, and manufacturing challenges to grow to be a cornerstone of Jamaica’s horticultural provide chain. That is the story of how a self-proclaimed “peasant boy” reworked childhood curiosity right into a technical enterprise supporting growers from yard gardeners to business agribusinesses — and the way it now confronts the sector’s most urgent existential threats.
Scarlett’s journey started removed from company boardrooms, within the crimson clay soils of his grandmother’s farm. “I used to be the little boy who sits below the tree,” he displays, recalling early life watching crops spring from earth that sustained his household. These early experiences seeded each technical curiosity and pragmatism — qualities that may later outline Evergrow’s operational ethos. By age six, Scarlett had declared his ambition to grow to be a “plant physician”, a imaginative and prescient that crystallised throughout college pathology research within the late Seventies.
“Unknowingly I went by way of highschool specialising within the agricultural sciences, and, identical in college the place I specialised in botany and chemistry, and it was solely after I was in college and doing my pathology programs that I realised that I used to be fulfilling that dream of being a plant physician, unknowingly,” Scarlett advised the Jamaica Observer.
This fusion of educational rigour and hands-on agricultural understanding grew to become Evergrow’s differentiator. After transient employment on the Sugar Trade Analysis Institute, Scarlett launched Eternal Flowers in 1980 — a man-made floral enterprise leveraging his chemistry experience to bleach and color preserved botanicals. When artificial florals fell from trend, this adaptability resurfaced, propelling Scarlett’s pivot in the direction of contemporary vegetation and landscaping companies.
“I entered with home landscaping — residence companies — then in a short time we moved into specialising into industrial and business companies — massive tasks — and we have been contractors to fairly quite a lot of massive firms on this nation for a few years,” Scarlett continued.
From Landscaping to Technical Provide Chain
The transition to Evergrow Backyard Centre marked a important inflection level. Recognising systemic gaps in Jamaica’s horticultural infrastructure, Scarlett shifted focus from decorative vegetation to technical provides: irrigation methods, rising media, fertilisers, and greenhouse supplies. “We wanted provides to develop our personal vegetation for landscaping and the exhausting items to assist these tasks,” he explains. Right now, exhausting items represent 80 per cent of stock, positioning Evergrow as Jamaica’s main horticultural options supplier quite than mere plant retailer.
“Evergrow Backyard Centre is just not a plant store, it’s not a flower store, it’s a horticultural provide retailer the place we provide each exhausting items and vegetation, so exhausting items is about 80 per cent of our enterprise, 20 per cent solely is vegetation,” he added.
This technical emphasis addressed a vital market want. Whereas rivals proliferated in plant gross sales, few supplied Scarlett’s mixture of agronomic experience and provide chain reliability.
Navigating Aggressive Pressures
Jamaica’s horticultural inputs market has grown more and more crowded, significantly in agrochemicals. But Evergrow maintains market share by way of knowledge-based differentiation. “We guarantee growers perceive product functions for optimum efficacy,” Scarlett notes. This technical advisory function mitigates dangers in a sector the place improper chemical use can devastate crops, fostering shopper loyalty amidst worth competitors.
He mentioned he has seen it throughout that point.
“I feel the alternatives are nonetheless there. I feel extra individuals, extra owners are paying a bit of extra consideration to their properties when it comes to the aesthetics and even a value-added for correct landscaping and beautification of your properties. It’s claimed by the actual property specialists {that a} correct well-done panorama property attracts some 20 per cent over the identical property with not an awesome panorama.”
He mentioned that achieve comes with owners spending about 1 per cent of the worth of their property on landscaping.
Opposite to retail traits in the direction of decentralisation, Evergrow maintains a single Kingston location. Scarlett defends this mannequin: “Our distribution channels don’t assist widespread supply, however we guarantee complete inventory”. The strategy prioritises high quality management and knowledgeable staffing — important when advising on technical merchandise like hydroponic vitamins or climate-resilient greenhouse designs.
This philosophy extends to stock selections. The corporate shares solely merchandise their crew can knowledgeably assist, with employees present process producer coaching earlier than introducing new agrochemicals. Such rigour explains Evergrow’s endurance the place rivals chasing market breadth usually falter.
Technological Adoption Obstacles
Scarlett identifies Jamaica’s lag in protected cultivation as a important vulnerability: “Agriculture is technologically pushed, but we’re nonetheless rising principally outside with out environmental controls”.
Whereas world counterparts leverage automated greenhouses for yield optimisation, Jamaican growers face hurricane dangers deterring infrastructure investments. Evergrow’s response — modular greenhouse kits designed for speedy disassembly — epitomises its strategy of adapting world finest practices to native realities.
“I feel we’re considerably not abreast of the expertise and I feel horticulture is and certainly agriculture is technologically pushed and I feel we simply have to pay a bit of extra consideration to expertise and I communicate particularly to horticulture croppings,” he outlined.
Scarlett mentioned not many buyers get into working greenhouses due to Jamaica’s place within the hurricane zones the place these constructions are simply ripped aside by sturdy winds.
“However even in open fields I imagine that there’s nonetheless an insufficiency of the appliance of expertise and I speak about say crop diet. There may be nonetheless not sufficient being accomplished to technically have a look at and apply crop diet expertise.”
He mentioned it irks him when farmers produce and should not have a marketplace for their crops and requires measures to be put in place to cope with problems with agricultural produce gluts.
However the place does he sees Evergrow sooner or later?
“I’m not at any time visioning any monopoly of the provision enterprise, so we might wish to proceed to function in our areas of competence and to have the sufficiency of provides within the areas that we’re competent to handle. We’re happy we’re fed by discovering options to our prospects, growers wants so it makes us completely happy after we can discover a answer to your rising wants.”
