Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Kitts and Nevis has a small, diversified agricultural sector in which potatoes are a minor but established food crop, grown primarily for the domestic market rather than export. Potato production is concentrated mainly on St. Kitts, where the crop fits into the islands’ broader shift from sugarcane toward vegetables, fruits, roots and tubers following the decline and eventual closure of the sugar industry. Farming is dominated by smallholders, and much crop production remains rainfed, although irrigation and protected cultivation are being expanded. Historical agricultural assessments identified white potato as an important import-substitution crop because of substantial domestic demand.

Potatoes have a longer cultivation history in Saint Kitts and Nevis than their current production scale suggests. White potatoes were grown on St. Kitts by small farmers and sugar estates during the early 1970s, but production declined and effectively ended after the 1976/77 season, largely because imported seed was expensive. The crop was reintroduced in 1985 under the government’s Agricultural Diversification Programme, with subsidized seed, land and technical support. Production increased rapidly from 15.9 tonnes in 1986 to about 303.9 tonnes in 1990, although it subsequently fluctuated. The reintroduction was driven largely by the opportunity to replace imported potatoes and supply the domestic market; historical estimates placed annual demand at more than 500 tonnes. Over the following decades, potatoes remained a relatively small crop compared with sweet potatoes and other vegetables, but continued to form part of the country’s diversified food-crop sector.