Near the entrance to AgriFest, an agricultural fair held on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI), I watch a woman in work boots swing a machete through tall sugarcane stalks. She feeds them into a hand-cranked compressor and the nectar slides down a sluice into a waiting plastic cup. The fresh cane juice is pale green and lightly foaming at the rim. It’s grassy and saccharine sweet. Like many things at the fair, it’s created by hand, on the spot: homemade, immediate, and inseparable from the labor that produced it.
“If people don’t come home for Christmas,” Shamari Haynes, deputy commissioner of the territory’s department of tourism, tells me, “they come home for AgriFest.” Watching families reunite over stone oven–roasted pork and farmers proudly displaying their year’s harvest, I begin to understand why this three-day gathering is considered more of a homecoming than a tourism spectacle.
Held annually over Presidents’ Day weekend in February at the Rudolph Shulterbrandt Agricultural Complex in the center of the 84-square-mile island, AgriFest has been running for more than 50 years. Organized in partnership with the University of the Virgin Islands School of Agriculture, the fair spreads across the island’s main fairgrounds, filling warehouses and outdoor areas with dozens of vendors. Unlike many Caribbean food festivals geared toward tourists, AgriFest keeps its original mission: honoring the island’s agricultural heritage and the farmers who sustain it.
“It’s one of the only opportunities to get a true understanding of who we are as Virgin Islanders, specifically Crucians,” says Haynes, who compares the event to a state fair.
There is no prescribed route for exploring the stalls, vendor tents, and food trucks. The priority is simple: food, and lots of it. At the center of the fair sit two massive warehouses. One is dedicated to agriculture and is crowded with farmers like Grantly Samuel, a multi-time USVI Farmer of the Year, whose booth overflows with lettuce, cabbage, and tomatoes.
The other warehouse shifts the focus from field to kitchen, showcasing the bakers and craftspeople turning the island’s raw ingredients into finished foods. Before becoming a U.S. territory in 1917, St. Croix passed through Spanish, Dutch, English, French, and Danish hands over four centuries. Its cuisine and culture draw on all of them, as well as East Indian influences brought to the island by indentured laborers.
The fair celebrates St. Croix’s agriculture, which has long been part of the island’s economic and cultural identity.
Courtesy of US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism (L); Photo by Dondre Richards/Shutterstock (R)
I linger over a warm beef paté (hand pie), its flaky crust splitting at the seams, and a fat slice of Vienna cake, a traditional seven-layer dessert made from thin yellow sponge stacked with vivid bands of fruit preserves, all enrobed in icing. For visitors, the fair is less about ticking off essential island dishes than following whatever line looks longest—or smells best.
Guavaberry tarts are popular. The unofficial pastry of the Virgin Islands is made from a native Caribbean berry (not guava) that’s both tart and sweet. Then there’s callaloo, or steamed, spiced leafy greens, and Caribbean flatbreads called johnny cakes, as well as fish and fungi—pronounced “foon-jee,” it’s a cornmeal dumpling. Other specialty items on sale include cocoa cheese, a fudge-like candy made from coconut, sugar, and warm spices, and fresh nutmeg, which is grown and farmed on St. Croix.
Between the food stalls, cultural performances bring Crucian heritage to life. Local high school steel drum bands perform throughout the weekend. Dancers demonstrate the quadrille—a square dance of French origin accompanied by traditional quelbe folk music. The twang of a banjo and the notes of a fiddle ride over scratchy percussion and call-and-response vocals. Towering Moko Jumbie stilt dancers weave through the crowds.
Tanisha Bailey-Roka, the food writer and cultural preservationist behind the blog Crucian Contessa, says the fair’s deeper purpose goes beyond showcasing crops. “Agriculture has long been part of St. Croix’s economic and cultural identity,” she explains. “We were the breadbasket of the Virgin Islands.” That legacy lives in the fair’s star attractions: the massive crimson-red Senepol cattle—a breed developed for the Caribbean climate by a Crucian family—and the heritage St. Croix sheep. “Every person says, ‘Wow, they are beautiful animals,’” Bailey-Roka says. “They make you feel insignificant. And we did that.”
She adds, “It’s nostalgia, memory, joy, food, love—all of that is culture and history. You see people at AgriFest that you haven’t seen all year.”
How to attend St. Croix’s AgriFest
AgriFest takes place annually over Presidents’ Day weekend in February, running Friday through Sunday at the Rudolph Shulterbrandt Agricultural Complex on St. Croix. Travelers can fly directly into Henry E. Rohlsen Airport from a number of U.S. city airports, including Miami, Boston, and Atlanta. U.S. citizens don’t need a passport to visit.
Admission is intentionally accessible, with low entry fees ranging from $5 to $12, and multi-day passes available for those planning to attend throughout the weekend. Most vendors operate on a cash basis. Comfortable walking shoes and sun protection are essential—the fairgrounds are expansive and largely outdoors. Arriving early on Friday brings the shortest lines and the best chance to secure rare foods—like bush teas and specialty pastries—that often sell out before the weekend is over.
For a weekend stay, beachfront resorts like Carambola Beach Resort offer a comfortable home base only 15 minutes from the fairground, allowing visitors to attend AgriFest while also experiencing St. Croix beyond the fairgrounds.
