Agrifest: The Virgin Islands' Great Agricultural Fair

Every February, mid-island St. Croix throws the U.S. Virgin Islands' biggest agricultural fair — Agrifest — and the whole territory shows up. If your winter villa week touches Presidents' Day weekend, half a day at the fairgrounds is the most local thing you can possibly do.

What it is

Agrifest is a genuine ag fair with island seasoning: livestock shows and 4-H kids, produce competitions, plant and seedling sales that empty by Sunday, farm-equipment demos, cultural performances, and food — food above all. The 2026 edition, the fair's 54th, runs February 14–16 at the Rudolph Shulterbrandt Agricultural Complex, Estate Lower Love, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, with adult admission at $8. The theme changes yearly; the crowds don't.

Eat your way through it

This is the island's farm kitchen at full power: plates of stewed and roasted everything, kallaloo and seasoned rice, fresh-squeezed cane and fruit juices, tarts and sweets from home bakers, and produce to carry back to the villa's kitchen — February is high season for the island's growers. Come hungry, carry cash for the stalls, and pace yourself like it's a marathon, because it is.

With kids

Agrifest may be the easiest kid-day on St. Croix: animals to meet, rides and games, mocko jumbies working the grounds, and enough juice and tarts to fuel the whole circuit. Go morning for cooler air and shorter lines; the villa pool absorbs the afternoon crash.

The bigger picture

The fair isn't nostalgia — it's the annual muster of a real farming revival on an island whose soil once fed a sugar empire. Buying a bag of Lower Love tomatoes at Agrifest is participating in the island's long argument that it can feed itself again. Round out the food year with Taste of St. Croix in spring and the festival food fair at Christmas.