Seminars to help V.I. farmers with legally required recordkeeping will be held at the Department of Agriculture (VIDOA) offices on St. Croix Tuesday and on St. Thomas on Nov. 29.
Under the “No Pound Left Behind” agricultural program mandated by the Virgin Islands Sustainable Farming Act, farmers must fill out and submit annual harvest and income schedules to VIDOA which then hands them in to the V.I. Senate.
The program is designed to help farmers improve their recordkeeping practices and to enable the VIDOA to build up a detailed agribusiness database. They plan to use the information for budgeting, policy development, local crop industry reporting and grant applications to the USDA. If production increases are clearly documented and provable, VIDOA can request larger grants under programs like the Specialty Crop Block Grant, which has funded projects such as local beekeeping training, yielding new jobs and business opportunities.
These more precise agricultural income figures will also be included in the territory’s annual GDP, giving policymakers a clear idea of the investment and budgetary opportunities for the farming sector.
The production counts could also lead to increased local purchasing by the territory’s supermarkets and restaurants as a result of better and more regularized information lines between them and the farmers. VIDOA states that farmers will benefit from historical knowledge of their production and income – useful for obtaining grants and loans and as proof for crop disaster recovery insurance claims.
Farmers must submit their forms by June 30, 2011, in order to renew their farming licenses. The first deadline for the annual harvest and income schedules was June 30, 2010.There is some concern about license renewal among farmers who did not know of the program’s requirement and did not keep the records or turn in the forms. For 2010, when about 20 percent of licensed farmers participated fully, the license renewal requirement was relaxed but VIDOA states that licenses in 2011 will not be renewed if the Harvest Report and Income Schedule has not been handed in.
VIDOA says they are offering the seminar to help all farmers to participate in 2011 and encourages farmers to come to the seminars to learn about the process. In response to farmers’ requests that VIDOA communicate more directly with them on important policy matters, VIDOA has stated that it is now making phone calls to licensed farmers to notify them of the upcoming seminars.
The seminars will be held on St. Croix from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday at the UVI Research and Extension Center, Room 133, and on St. Thomas from 6-8 pm Nov. 29 at the UVI Small Business Development Center. More seminars will be held early next year.
The updated Harvest Report and Income Schedule forms are available at VIDOA offices on each island and online at www.vifresh.com , where the seminar presentation is also posted, both under the forms and documents link.
