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Imported Food is a "Budget-busting Problem" for the Caribbean

Doing Too Little, Too Much, Or Just Enough?

The New York Times reports that "food imports have become a budget-busting problem" and a "threat to finances and health" across the Caribbean, prompting the region's nations to implement practices and policies to "make farming patriotic and ubiquitous, behind homes, hospitals, schools, even prisons."

One minister of agriculture quoted in the article stated that "Every country is concerned about it.  How can we produce our own?  How can we feed our own?"  Across the region,  governments are answering these questions by giving out thousands of seed kits to home farmers, by establishing hundreds of school gardens maintained by students and teachers, by sending students out on missions to plant thousands of trees, and even “building a gleaming food science university” in the Bahamas.

In places like the Caribbean and the southern United States, where "farming is still often seen as a reminder of plantations and slavery," more and more people are making the more astute observation that our region's dependence on food imports obtained at a crippling cost is modern economic slavery that continues the exploitation of our people and islands for the benefit of other nations.

The drive for food security across the region is having mixed results, according to the Times article; many home farmers give up due to increased water bills and theft of their goods, many local consumers have acquired a preference for foreign foods, and local food processing and preservation capability remain severely under-developed.  These challenges are well within the region's power to overcome, and overcoming them is the only option in the face of the over-burdened budgets and the food insecurity promised by continued dependency on imported foods.

Today's food dependency, together with the uncertainties of future climate change and the vicissitudes of the global economy, keep the region set for a repeat of the food shortages of 2008 when the cost of food reached “new heights” and “exporting countries were holding on to food for their own populations.”  Perhaps Virgin Islanders believe that our relationship to the United States makes us permanently immune to the shortages suffered by our neighbors.  As the cost of imported foods in the Territory continues to skyrocket beyond our ability to pay, however, aren’t the choices we are forced to make every time we shop for food already creating real shortages at home for our children and for ourselves?  How many families with three or four children today can put out a variety of fresh fruit everyday and let their children eat as much as they want and as much as they need for their future good health?

According to the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis, Virgin Islanders spent three hundred and nine million dollars in 2010 on mostly imported "foods, feeds, and beverages."  Although our population is less than 4% the size of Jamaica’s, we spent over 30% of what Jamaica spent on imported food.  Per capita, Virgin Islanders are spending a ridiculous amount of money on imported foodstuffs as compared to our neighbors.  If our neighbors’ expenditures on imported foods constitute a “food crisis,” what in the world do these numbers tell us about our own situation?   

What do the numbers tell us about our situation when the food stamps run out and a pound of grapes from the States costs ten dollars instead of the nearly five dollars it costs today?   How will we feed ourselves and our children then?  How much more will we accept diabetes, cancer, obesity, high blood pressure, and more as normal for ourselves and our children when it is well known and well documented that a nutritionally inferior diet of highly-processed foods and low intake of fresh fruits and vegetables are major contributors to these diseases?  How much longer can we deny that food security in the Virgin Islands is a dangerous illusion, not a reality?  Many more Virgin Islanders today are demanding answers to these questions.  It is not only their right to do so, it is their duty, both for themselves and for the sake of their children and their children's children.

Picture Source:

N.d. Photograph. Department of Agriculture, St. Croix, USVI. Web. 14 Aug 2013. <http://www.vifresh.com/index.php>.

Information Sources:

Cave, Damien. "As Cost of Importing Food Soars, Jamaica Turns to the Earth." New York Times [New York] 03 AUG 2013, n. pag. Web. 14 Aug. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/world/americas/as-cost-of-importing-food-soars-jamaica-turns-to-the-earth.html?pagewanted=all>.

Hamano, Aya, and Wali Osman. United States. Bureau of Economic
   Analysis. Bureau of Economic Analysis (Bea) Releases Estimates
   of Gross Domestic Product, Gross Domestic Product by Industry,
   Compensation by Industry, and Detailed Consumer Spending for 
   the U.S. Virgin Islands. Washington, DC: , 2012. Web.
   <http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/general/terr/2012
   /vigdp_10152012.pdf>.

Big Birds and Bush Tea

Speaking shortly before the vote on the 4^th Amendment to the Hovensa Concession Agreement, Senator Myron Jackson recalled a time when large numbers of flamingos could be seen in St. Croix.   

St. Croix’s youngest generation has never experienced this natural spectacle, but according to a 2010 online article, as late as the 1990’s “St. Croix used to have small groups of flamingos that would visit the West End Salt Pond in the fall and winter.” 

Nearby Anegada, British Virgin Islands was also once home to the exotic flamingo “in large numbers, possibly by the tens of thousands.”  By the 1960's,” however, “when large-scale development of Anegada was initiated…a few older birds remaining… eventually died or flew off.”

Yesterday, the Director of Insular Affairs for the United States Department of the Interior was a speaker at the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority VIenergize kick-off event in St. Croix.  Director Pula began by expressing surprise and disappointment that neither his hotel nor the downtown restaurant where he dined could provide him with a cup of “bush tea.”    He went on to say that, like him,  too many visitors who come here seeking an authentic Virgin Islands experience are leaving without finding so much as a simple cup of local tea.

So, what do local tea and vanished flamingos have in common?  And why concern ourselves at all with big pink birds and bush tea at a time when St. Croix is still reeling from the body slam Hovensa delivered last year?  At a time when the Legislature's solid refusal to grant the corporate giant more concessions has added to our uncertainty about the future?  

Why?  Because one visitor's lament about tea, like one senator's reminiscence about flamingos, reveals the deeper and more damaging truth that in our nearly fifty-year relationship with Hess/Hovensa and in our blind pursuit of the fabled American dream, we have sacrificed too much of the cultural, natural, human, and historical resources upon which the authenticity of a people rests.

Even if we dismiss Mr. Pula and his “bush tea” as a small loss for one person; even if we dismiss Senator Jackson’s memories as simple nostalgia for his childhood, that would not change the reality that one man’s tea and another’s flamingos are symbols of an immeasurable loss suffered by the people of the Virgin Islands.  How, after all, does one measure a diminished legacy left for future generations?

Every crisis is also an opportunity to act.  Together with our anxiety about the future and the economic hardships we are experiencing, there is a real opportunity to change direction toward industries like eco-tourism, organic agriculture, and green energy.  Virgin Islanders spent $309,000,000 (three hundred and nine million dollars!) on "foods, feeds, and beverages" in 2010.  Just half of that could support a robust local agriculture and food production industry.

Rather than returning to dependency on a single corporate polluter, we have the opportunity to break from the politics of expediency and personal gain and to leverage our human and natural resources in a wholistic development plan to achieve and sustain economic opportunity, food sovereignty and food security, as well as the health and well-being of our people and our environment.  These goals are noble, attainable, highly synergistic, and one hundred percent consistent with Virgin Islands traditional values.

Will we continue to preside over a diminishing legacy and to suffer more irreversible losses from our environment, from our personal experience, from our children, and eventually from our collective memory?  Or will we insist on our rights to a richer future?

In 1992 The Conservation Agency and the Guana Island Wildlife Sanctuary began reintroducing flamingos to Anegada and nearby Guana.   

There were unanticipated stumbling blocks, such as the lack of wildlife protection laws to prevent tourists who “would frequently muck right into the salt ponds for a picture," often trampling the flamingos’ nesting mounds in the process.  

Today, however, large numbers of the beautiful and exotic flamingo are again “a striking spectacle to witness” on Anegada.

Happily, Director Pula did not remain disappointed.  Thanks to the outstanding catering provided for the VIenergize kick-off by local eatery, Pizza Gusto, he did get to enjoy a cup of delicious “bush tea” before leaving St. Croix.  A small victory, perhaps, but we have the power to make it the harbinger of tremendous progress that will bring organic local teas, fruits, vegetables, baked goods, fish, meats, poultry and eggs to hotel and restaurant menus, to grocery store and supermarket shelves, and to family dinner tables throughout our islands.

Changing our future is first and foremost a matter of changing our minds about the future we desire, the future we deserve, and the future it is within our power to create. 

To learn more about eco-tourism, click here

For more information about VIenergize, email VIenergize Services (VIeS) at vies@viwapa.vi

Picture Sources:

N.d. Photograph. The Conservation Agency, Jamestown, RI. Web. 10 Aug 2013. <http://www.theconservationagency.org/tca.htm>. 

MacDonald, Jean. Asase Ye Duru. N.d. Graphic. Adinkra Symbols of West Africa: Mpatapo, Portland, OR. Web. 10 Aug 2013. <http://www.adinkra.org/htmls/adinkra_site.htm>.

Information Sources:

Lewin, Aldeth. "What are godwits and golden plovers and a flamingo doing here?." Virgin Islands Daily News [St. Thomas, USVI] 16 OCT 2010, n. pag. Web. 10 Aug. 2013. <http://virginislandsdailynews.com/what-are-godwits-and-golden-plovers-and-a-flamingo-doing-here-1.1049812>.

"Flamingo Reintroduction to Anegada, British Virgin Islands." The Conservation Agency. The Conservation Agency. Web. 10 Aug 2013. <http://www.theconservationagency.org/flamingos.htm>. 

Hamano, Aya, and Wali Osman. United States. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Bureau of Economic Analysis (Bea) Releases Estimates of Gross Domestic Product, Gross Domestic Product by Industry, Compensation by Industry, and Detailed Consumer Spending for the U.S. Virgin Islands. Washington, DC: , 2012. Web. <http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/general/terr/2012/vigdp_10152012.pdf>.

4th Amendment Voted Down

Banana Quit - Official Bird of the Virgin Islands

Citing the vague and ambiguous language of the document, the lack of legally binding guarantees for the people of the Virgin Islands, Hovensa's failure to honor past contracts with the Virgin Islands government, health and environmental concerns, and the advice of outside counsel, the 30th Legislature of the Virgin Islands voted 11 to 3 tonight to reject  the 4th Amendment to the Hovensa Concession Agreement. 

Many people who opposed the Amendment expressed hope that tonight's vote marks a turn in direction toward more environmentally sound future development on St. Croix.  

Several senators noted the outpouring of community concern leading up to the vote, although some objected to the deluge of calls and emails they received.  

Thank you to all who signed our online petition and to those who made their voices heard through other means.  Let us remain informed, vigilant, and involved in the democratic process as our elected representatives grapple with the many difficult issues still facing these beautiful Virgin Islands.

Tonight's vote:

Nelson - No
Buckley - Yes
O'Reilly - No
Roach - No
Hansen - No
Payne - No
Gittens - No
Jackson - No
Capehart - No
Graham - No
Cole - Yes
Millin-Young - No
Sanes - Yes
Malone - No
Barshinger - Absent