Small-Scale Agriculture

in the United States Virgin Islands, 1930-1983


 Jerome L. McElroy
 Associate Professor of Economics
 Saint Mary's College
 Notre Dame, IN 46556




 Over the past half century, United States Virgin Islands
agriculture has deteriorated because of the phase-out of com-
mercial sugar and escalating resource competition from
tourism, construction, government and export manufactur-
ing. Increasing dualism has resulted with a few large farms
dominating in cattle, dairying, and sorghum, while a very
large number of small (less than 50 acres) farms have increas-
ingly specialized in vegetables, field crops, fruits and nuts,
poultry, and small livestock. Since 1960 these small-scale
holdings have dominated the production of sheep, goats,
hogs, poultry, eggs, avocados, bananas, coconuts, grapefruits,


 Klaus de Albuquerque
 Research Fellow
 Institute of Applied Socio-Economic Research
 Papau, New Guinea, and
 Associate Professor of Sociology
 The College of Charleston
 Charleston, SC 29429

limes and lemons, mangoes, oranges, and papayas. In terms of
gross output shares, farms of 3-9 acres have consistently been
the most productive while 10-19 acre farms have been the least
productive. Output per acre comparisons reveal that farm sizes
of under 3 acres and 3-9 acres warrant special policy focus
because of their relatively superior productivity and their ex-
treme.resource constraints.
Keywords: United States Virgin Islands, small-scale
agriculture, modernization, intensive farming, relative pro-
ductivity.


Agriculture in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), like the
territory's economy, is distinguished by its small scale. Yet, there
is little information available quantitatively detailing the growth
of small-scale farming and its contribution to total agricultural ef-
fort in the territory. In addition, although research conducted
primarily by the College of the Virgin Islands Agricultural Experi-
ment Station has emphasized the small-farm sector (College of
the Virgin Islands, 1980), there is little clear evidence to deter-
mine which small farm size(s) is(are) most efficient and deserving
of special policy attention.
 This study is a partial response to some of these deficiencies. It
 has three parts. The first presents a contextual overview of USVI
 agriculture from 1930 to 1983. The second profiles small-scale
 farming in the territory and discusses respective patterns of
 specialization. The third examines the relative productivity of the
 four smallest-scale farm sizes for policy purposes. In deference to
 the United States Census of Agriculture data employed through-
 out, we have attempted to keep the conclusions fairly general
 because of the dangers of misreporting, the general absence of
 written records, and other commonly associated problems/errors.
 In addition, we have tried to take some account of small-number
 distortions in the data interpretation.

 Historical Trends
 Since the United States' purchase of the Danish West Indies in
 1917, agriculture has steadily deteriorated as a result of the inevi-
 table forces of economic modernization. This decline has acceler-
 ated especially since 1960 because of the territory's phase-out of
 commercial sugar production, intensified resource competition
 from tourism, construction, government, and export manufac-
 turing, and a widespread pattern of suburbanisation to accom-
modate rising population densities caused by intense immigra-
tion pressures (McElroy and De Albuquerque, 1980). Similar
declines in the face of industrialization have been noted
elsewhere in the Caribbean (Bryden, 1974; Beckford, 1975;
Daubon and Robinson, 1975; Jainrain, 1976; Bourne and Weir,
1980; Hope, 1981; McElroy and De Albuquerque, 1984).

VOL. XX-PROCEEDINGS of the CARIBBEAN FOOD CROPS SOCIETY


 These trends are detailed in Table 1. Since the period during
 which the agricultural census is taken is generally July 1 to June
 30, sometimes the date of the data (1960, 1975, 1983) cor-
 responds to the year following the date of the census (1959, 1974,
 1982). The half century since 1930 has witnessed sharp reductions
 in total farm acreage, average farm size, harvested cropland, and
 agricultural employment. In addition, there have been
 measurable declines in agriculture as the main occupation of
 farmers as well as predictable increases in the percent of farm
 operators engaged primarily (200 + days per year) in off-farm
 employment. The data also demonstrate drastic declines in the
 use of hired labor, partly as a result of sugar's demise, but also
 because of more lucrative job opportunities in tourism, construc-
 tion, and so on. For example, both government and tourism
 employment rose from roughly 20% of the total in 1960 to 33%
 and above 40% respectively in 1982 (McElroy and Tinsley, 1982).
 Several rural sector adjustments have taken place during this
long-period encroachment. First has been the increased use of
tractors and fertilizer as substitutes for labor and more traditional
farming and animal husbandry practices (Table 1). A second has
been the noticeable shift away from cropping toward animal
husbandry/poultry-a common Caribbean index of declining ef-
fort and rural marginalization (Richardson, 1983). For example,
the percentage of all farmland in pasture increased from 55% to
77% between 1930 and 1983, while the percent of all farms pur-
chasing livestock/poultry rose from roughly 20 to 70%. Third,
while the percentage of farm operators as owners and on-farm for
ten years increased over the period, the proportion of new farm
operators (2-4 years on farm) steadily declined, indicating
agriculture's waning attractiveness. While the two increases seem
to indicate a growing farming tradition, they may also reflect the
difficulties of selling real estate because of conflicting multiple-
family ownership claims and archaic tenure practices held over
from the Danish colonial period.
 The most significant alterations have occurred in farm size and
acreage distributions. Table 2 sketches the broad contours of a
process of growing dualism consisting of an increasing number of


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