Spotlight on Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
The Southern region of the Farm and Ranch Assistance Network (FRSAN) includes 13 southern states as well as the territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Puerto Rico has a population of 3.22 million people with 7,602 farms on the island, according to the 2022 Puerto Rico Census of Agriculture, which is the most recent data available. The U.S. Virgin Islands, comprised of the primary islands of St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas as well as several smaller islands, has a population of 105,413 with 565 farms (2018 USVI Census—also the most recent data).
U.S. Virgin Islands
The U.S. Virgin Islands Dept of Agriculture (VIDA) was awarded farm stress funding known as a state expansion grant. They elected to subaward a portion of their grant funds to SAgE to ensure the VI project integrated seamlessly with regional efforts.
Strategic Projects Specialist Hannah Brinson has worked with VIDA since early 2023 to launch a farm stress support program. The first stage of the program was to conduct a needs assessment, and findings from the assessment were used to build a program that responds to the gaps and needs that the farmers shared.
Notwithstanding the challenges of working across islands when conducting outreach with farmers, the work has been accomplished by a small but dedicated team. In addition to Brinson, that team includes Diana Collingwood, Assistant Commissioner at VIDA; Tamara Mohammed and Tarik McMillan of Greater Changes, who have provided mental health expertise; and Naomi Douglas, who serves as the local coordinator for the project.
The assessment plan was designed to hear directly from farmers about their experiences, strengths, and needs. The team used a survey exploring stressors, willingness to seek help from specific people or processes, and the resources farmers, their families, and professionals working with farmers in the VI use or need. They also conducted a focus group with farmers, specifically asking for more in-depth perspectives about aggregate data from the survey, to confirm the information and hear from farmers about what solutions they would like to see.
Additional structured interviews were conducted with professionals such as extension agents and farmers’ market organizers to obtain their feedback about what stressors farmers experience and what barriers exist to connecting them with resources that address the root causes of stress.
The project is in the process of selecting 30 eligible applicants for an initial cohort of a Farmer Support Program. Each member will receive training, stress reduction skills, technology access, and financial assistance. Applicants must be a farmer in the territory and have a valid farming license or be willing to obtain one, and be willing to participate in bi-weekly meetings from September 2024-March 2025. Applications will be accepted through August 31.
Puerto Rico
In Puerto Rico, SAgE has partnered with Miguel Marxuach, executive director of Alianza por Agricultura/Alliance for Agriculture, and lead researcher Dr. Natasha Sagardia Beltran of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus. The work in Puerto Rico has focused on a rural community school called CampoSofia that serves around 30 families in the Utuado region.
CampoSofia is the host for the research that Dr. Sagardia has conducted for the project, and the Alianza is the fiscal sponsor. Because the Alianza’s focus is on rural livelihood and a healthy rural economy in addition to food production, the idea of engaging in a project related to farm stress was a natural fit.
As Marxuach explains, Hurricane Maria hitting the island in 2017 divides time into a clear before and after, and the Alianza’s formation was born out of the huge need for assistance that came in the hurricane’s aftermath. “When the hurricane hit, there were a lot of sources of funding from the states, both public and private,” he says. “But there was no infrastructure to meet the criteria needed for these foundations to actually get the money to them.”
CampoSofia is a school that provides an education for the children of rural families along the mountain central range from the town of Utuado up to Corozal, but as part of the vision of the Alianza, it also is a place to provide basic services to the families. And so, Dr. Sagardia says, those families make up a very specific sample for her research of people who have made the decision to pursue a life in agriculture.
Moving forward, both Marxuach and Sagardia see the work continuing outward from CampoSofia much like ripples in a pond, or concentric circles. From the small community of 20 or 30 families, the work will expand to the wider community beyond the school, and then to the regions next to Utuado, and so on.
Sagardia stresses the practical nature of the research, which provides concrete solutions that can be put into practice right away within the community. “It’s applied research, which is at the core of SAgE,” she says. “The research is not just informative or statistical, but we find in the data the tools that are necessary to design something that is going to be useful and relevant for the participants who are part of the research.”