Linking Agriculture and Tourism: Constraints and Opportunities with a Focus on Local Food Chains in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Stafford Crossman, Carlos Robles, Louis Petersen, Eric J. Wailes and Francis A. Mwaijande

No 256459, 44th Annual Meeting, July 13-17, 2008, Miami, Florida, USA from Caribbean Food Crops Society

Abstract: The linkage between tourism and agriculture in the US Virgin Islands is limited by production, marketing and institutional constraints. A study was conducted to identify and evaluate policy constraints and opportunities to improve this linkage. Focus group analyses of farmers, hospitality personnel, and policy decision-makers were conducted to develop a formal survey questionnaire. Each group was then surveyed in order to identify current and potential production/purchase constraints and opportunities for local food by restaurants in the islands. Seventy percent of restaurants' food purchases originate less than 10% of local food, 35% of restaurants make no purchases of local foods. However, 97% indicated willingness to purchase if available. In addition to availability constraints, quality, prices, consistency and other factors were determined to be constraints. Lack of producer knowledge of quality and product demand by farmers, and lack of knowledge of availability and outlets by chefs are key constraints. Development of educational exchange and information systems and a pilot project for production/market contracts for local foods are recommended and are being pursued.

Keywords: International Relations/Trade; Production Economics; Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 5
Date: 2008-07-13
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/256459/files/C ... Wailes-Mwaijande.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:cfcs08:256459

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.256459

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 44th Annual Meeting, July 13-17, 2008, Miami, Florida, USA from Caribbean Food Crops Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().