The first annual Tropical Vegetable and Root Crops Festival in the Virgin Islands (VI) is scheduled for December 5, 2025. Photo: Arona V. Forbes

Mrs Arona V. Forbes, owner of Arona’s Marketplace, is organising the Tropical Vegetable and Root Crops Festival. Photo: Arona V. Forbes

This agriculture festival is the brainchild of Mrs Arona V. Forbes, owner of Arona’s Marketplace. 

Mrs Forbes, having previously worked at the Agriculture Department and a former Chief Agriculture Officer, said she has seen a decline in agriculture in the VI since retiring in 2018. 

“The activities that used to be done are no longer there, so since I am still in agriculture and I am in it full-time, I felt it necessary for this festival to come about.”

VI producers must be recognised

She added that it is important for agricultural producers in the Virgin Islands to be recognised and for the general population to see the importance of having agriculture here in the territory. 

This is one of the reasons why the agriculture festival will be held under the theme ‘Agriculture Revive and Thrive in 2025’. 

“I was holding back because I didn’t want the government to say that persons are doing things in agriculture, but since I see that nothing is being done, I opted to do this so that some form of recognition could be given to the agricultural sector.”

A packed event 

Mrs Forbes explained that the festival, which will be held at Noel Lloyd Park, will have various activities. Vendors are invited to display and sell their produce. 

Schools involved with gardening will be invited to participate in a competition “to show that the children are involved in gardening”. 

As the festival will focus on vegetables and root crops, a veggie trivia and cooking competition will also be held, where cooks will prepare a dish using a particular product selected by Forbes. 

A panel discussion will also be held during the festival, and panellists will be persons from the Department of Agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture, and producers or farmers. 

Mrs Forbes said it is important to have producers as part of the panel so they can share the challenges the farming community is facing. 

“Often times, when you go to a training, stuff is already prepared and the decisions are already made in those, but the farming community whom it would affect they don’t really have a say in it, they in essence, they just come to listen and even if they have given feedback, the decision is already taken so much of what they are saying goes on deaf ears,” she explained. 

Come out and support

Mrs Forbes is calling on people to come out and support the agriculture festival, as agriculture must be revived in the territory 

“Most of the stuff that is imported they are full of chemicals and preservatives that is not good for our body but the local production that we have, even though it may be small, is very important becasue it is grown in a more healthy way, we are able to get it fresh and it being fresh you are able to get all the nutrients.”

She added that she hopes the Tropical Vegetables and Root Crops Festival will become an annual event. 

“I don’t want a one-time thing. I want to have this annually for the BVI.”