Trade, tenure and tourism in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico: Understanding the Policy Frameworks that will increase success for an Organics Agriculture

Trade, tenure and tourism in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico: Understanding the Policy Frameworks that will increase success for an Organics Agriculture

Summary

The U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico have been territories of the United States for many decades. These island territories are located in the Caribbean Sea. Their major agricultural products include: sugarcane, coffee, fruits and vegetables, livestock products, chickens and dairy (Puerto Rico) and adding to that array forage crops, horticultural specialties, fish and aquaculture (U.S. Virgin Islands.) While there is substantial agriculture given the size of landmass available, agriculture within the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico has many challenges.Strengthening opportunities for linkages between the growing tourism industry, existing agricultural operations, and potential organic and sustainable operations is needed. The tourism industry imports virtually all of its food supply needs. By improving the relationship between existing and potential agricultural enterprises within the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and the tourism venues that exist within those territories, much can be done to improve the situation of those who are involved in agriculture, as well as improve the situation for an improved sustainable and organics agriculture.Objectives of the project include research and analysis of policy constraints/barriers to enhance agricultural market development, particularly in organics and sustainable agricultural products, in general and with the existing tourism sector, specifically. USVI and PR are not included within the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI).

Objectives/Performance Targets

This project explores a new priority area for SSARE, namely an analysis of policy, program evaluation and quality of life. The farming communities within USVI/PR are made up of many who do not have access to vast amounts of land. Their tenure is, for the most part, not based on land ownership and as such their capacity and incentive to conserve, protect or make substantial or expensive changes in production practices and methods is limited. So, to that extent, they are limited-resource farmers. The project objectives are aimed at increasing and encouraging growth in the organics and sustainable agriculture sector, particularly in its linkages with existing tourism sectors and other appropriate avenues that will encourage stabilization and growth of agriculture in the islands. Implicit in the goal of encouraging growth in the organics and sustainable agriculture sectors is the encouragement of environmentally sound agricultural practices and preservation and conservation of agricultural ecosystems in the islands. Finally, by encouraging and fostering growth in the organics and sustainable agriculture sectors, the marketing of agricultural products at the local-island level and the promotion of economic development within the islands by linking the local food system to the local tourism industry will necessarily be the avenue of choice. Having demonstrated the cross-cutting nature of the proposed project (i.e., across multiple priority areas of the SSARE programming effort), the project directors and collaborators settled on the emerging priority area of: Policy, Program Evaluation, and Quality of Life as the priority area for this particular project. The thread that intertwines all goals and objectives of the project is the need to analyze different policy options available to the island agriculturalist in order to determine the potential for greatest achievement of the goals of encouraging local food in the tourism industry and increasing the presence of organics and sustainable agriculture within the island agricultural sector. Policy identification and the process of evaluating different policy scenarios throughout the course of this project will give the Island participants the opportunity to determine the best avenues to address current policy situations and the clearest path to policy reforms that might be needed in order to encourage organic and sustainable agriculture in linkage with the local tourism industry.Objectives of the project include: 1) conduct research and analysis of policy constraints/barriers to enhance agricultural market development, particularly in organics and agricultural products in sustainable production systems, in general; 2) conduct research and analysis of the policy constraints/barriers, opportunities and potential economic impact for increases in organic and sustainable marketing specifically within the tourism sectors in both the USVI/PR; and 3) transmittal/outreach of project findings to the agricultural, trade and tourism sectors throughout USVI/PR.The project team will meet regularly to review progress and constraints in achieving project goals. Meetings will be accomplished via telephone conference call and with in-person meetings on a regular basis. The effectiveness of this project will be determined in a number of ways. Our criteria will be compared to contributions reported by survey respondents (e.g., did we identify all relevant subject areas for exploration or did respondents enlighten us further into our study). Survey demographic results will be compared to information from the official agricultural statistical survey sources, as well as other relevant sources, to determine if consistencies exist across data collection methods. Requests for information will be monitored. Information gained at the end of the project as to policies impacted, plans for change and linkages encouraged (especially involving keys and barriers to success) will be monitored beyond the project time frame (should resources permit). Effectiveness of the project in gaining participation from those affected in the USVI/PR will be determined through responses to survey instruments, participation in focus group sessions, and through participation in an end-phase symposium on the issues. Surveys from participants at the end-phase symposium on the issues will be analyzed to determine effectiveness of the program in achieving desired results and will be incorporated into follow on activities that result from this project. Evaluation of the effectiveness of this project in achieving increased success in the organics/sustainable agriculture arena, particularly in making connections between that industry and the tourism industry, will be measured at the beginning and the end of the project by surveys. These surveys will be designed to elicit data that will gauge participation on the part of producers in providing agricultural product to the tourism industry and gauging participation and interest by the tourism industry in purchasing locally produced agricultural products. Ultimately, the success of the project will be measured by the overall analysis of policy impact and whether key policies were identified for change and finally whether change occurred that would herald an improved situation for sustainable agriculture, the local producer and the organic sector growth.

Accomplishments/Milestones

• Three Focus Group Discussions (FGD) were conducted in the U.S Virgin Islands between September and October 2005. The three focus groups included:
  1) local farmers/producers,
  2) restaurant/hotel owners/managers, and
  3) policy decision-makers.
  The objectives of Focus Group Discussions were to collect in-depth information to be used as the basis for formulating survey questionnaires. Three open-ended questions were posed to each of the focus groups to:
  1) Identify key issues that are pertinent to the development of sustainable agricultural – tourism industries in the US Virgin Islands.
  2) Generate ideas about major constraints for the development of sustainable agricultural-tourism linkages in the US Virgin Islands,
  3) Generate ideas for improving policy environments to create agriculture and tourism linkages.The key issues and constraints identified from the three focus groups include inter alia:
  Production related constraints:
  Inadequate land for farming,
  Inadequate water for irrigation,
  Inaccessibility to farm loans and capital. Whereas consumer related constraints identified were:
  Low quality of local produce,
  Inconsistent supply,
  Inadequate marketing and supply chains for local produce.
  The focus groups prioritized the main recommendations for creating sustainable linkages between agriculture and tourism in the U.S Virgin Islands. The following are the most important recommendations from each focus group: Identify profitable products and segments in the agriculture industry that are economically viable in the Virgin Islands.
  Reorganize government to improve support for the agriculture industry, including greater participation by farmer associations.
  Enact legislation to improve capital investment in production and marketing of local produce. Initiate a pilot supply chain project for local produce with restaurants.
  Identify long-term stakeholders (buyers and sellers).
  Conduct a needs assessment in order to understand what is available from farmers. Develop a long-term development plan for linking the agriculture and tourism sectors.
  An interim report has been generated that summarizes the ideas and issues generated from the focus group meeting. These ideas and issues will be incorporated into formal survey questionnaires that will be used in 2006 to sample farmers/producers, restaurant/hospitality industry personnel, and government policy decision-makers. The project will implement these surveys in 2006 to obtain statistically valid responses of the various stakeholders to more fully explain perceptions and attitudes towards production and marketing constraints and strategies to improve linkages between the agriculture and hospitality/tourism sectors. Analysis of the survey results will provide the basis for a conference to be held in spring 2007 to bring the various stakeholders together to address production, marketing and policy constraints on linkage of the agriculture and tourism sectors.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

This research has raised awareness among the stakeholders in the U.S. Virgin Islands on the potential for development of linkages between sustainable agriculture and tourism. In February 2006 the Agriculture and Food Fair of the U.S. Virgin Islands to be held on St. Croix will have the theme of “Agriculture and Tourism: The Perfect Mix in 2006”. http://www.viagrifest.org/
This awareness and strategies for policy to improve the linkages between agriculture and tourism will be further developed through project reports and the project conference in 2007.

Collaborators: