Sustainable small‐scale agriculture in small caribbean Islands

This article examines the postwar decline in agriculture in small tropical islands. From trends in seven Eastern Caribbean countries and detailed case histories of four very small, tourism‐led islands, it presents a structural disequilibrium model that argues that much of the agricultural decline is due to large and persistent sectoral income and wage discrepancies that cause widespread mobility of land and labor from agricultural to tourism and related uses. It concludes with a broad set of policies and practices, consistent with the model, to reverse agricultural declines and preserve environmental stability.