Returning the Harvest: Island Food Systems Summit II
A Note from Sommer
Greetings Beautiful People,
Welcome back.
Welcome to the center of our virtual village, our Yucayeque (yoo-kah-YEH-keh): a way of being in relationship with land, water, food, memory, and one another.
For three days, we gathered across our places. Each of us arrived carrying something of home: our communities, our histories, our knowledge, our questions, and the work we are tending.
We worked beside one another. We listened. We ate. We laughed. We questioned. We remembered. We imagined. We made things together.
And then we went home.
But the gathering does not disappear simply because we have left the physical space.
I pray that each of you is forever changed, even if only a little, because we were together.
I know that I am.
Our time together left a significant mark on me, on VI Good Food, on our team, and on our understanding of the work ahead and the world we are nourishing together.
That is why this is not simply a website.
It is a container.
And inside the harvest is a blueprint of possibility: the ways we might become together.
It holds some of what we shared: our conversations, questions, tensions, joy, relationships, imagination, and what began to emerge when we gathered.
It cannot hold everything. But what we were able to capture, we are returning to you with care.
This space is here to help us remember, reconnect, make meaning, deepen our relationships, honor our commitments, and move toward action.
And underneath all of that is love: for our people, our places, and the futures we are responsible for tending.
Because the harvest is not the end of the gathering.
The harvest is the beginning of what we choose to do with what the gathering gave us.
I hope you find yourself here. I hope you find one another again. I hope you notice what is missing, follow what still has life in it, and see something you are willing to help carry forward.
And before you enter, I want you to know this:
We love you.
Thank you for what you brought into our Yucayeque.
Thank you for what you carried home.
We are returning it to you with care.
In gratitude and solidarity,Sommerand the VI Good Food Team
First, we feed ourselves.
ARE WE TOGETHER?
Enter the HarvestReturning the Harvest
What we were able to capture from the Summit, returned to the people who made it.
From September 9–13, 2026, farmers, fishers, food-system leaders, organizers, researchers and community partners gathered in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, for the second Island Food Systems Summit. Through community brigades at eight sites, shared learning, visioning and collaborative design, we explored the future of Caribbean food systems and began naming collective pathways toward resilience, equity and food sovereignty.
Explore · Validate · Connect · Carry Forward
How to use this digital harvest
There is no single way through it.
- Explore the harvest.Move through what we heard, what participants explored and designed, and the possibilities beginning to emerge.
- Go deeper where something speaks to you.Revisit Summit photographs, participant voices and key Summit data connected to different parts of the gathering.
- Help us validate what we captured.Notice what feels true, what needs refinement, what is missing, and where the synthesis may not fully reflect your experience.
- Follow what still has life in it.Look at the areas participants want to continue exploring and decide where you may want to stay connected.
- Raise your hand.Tell us which conversations or areas you are interested in carrying forward. Interest does not mean a commitment to lead.
- Reconnect with the network.Summit participants can opt into the participant directory and help shape a future participant-only space, so relationships can continue without making personal information publicly searchable.
- Return over time.This is a living harvest. Additional photographs, video and next steps will be added as the work continues.
You do not need to read everything. Start where you are curious. Follow what matters to you. And help us decide together what is worth carrying forward.
The Summit in numbers
A synthesis of what we were able to capture
So much happened in the conversations, relationships, shared work and moments between moments that no record could hold it all.
This site returns what we documented, heard, made and noticed together, and creates a path for deciding what we carry forward.
How we gathered
Grow
Shared work, brigades, mutual aid and learning from place.
Gather
World Café, lived experience, storytelling and participant-led conversation.
Galvanize
Design Labs, emerging directions and the question of what continues.
“Our islands should be connected rather than isolated.”
St. Croix · St. Thomas · St. John · Tortola, BVI · Puerto Rico · Vieques · Haiti · St. Lucia · Barbados · Jamaica · San Andrés + Providencia · Continental U.S.
One unfolding story
The first gathering
More than 130 people met on St. Croix for the inaugural Summit: Resources, Relationships & Resilience.
Harvesting and reconnecting
Returning what we heard, validating it together, and convening the areas people want to keep working on.
Labs, sprints and collective action
The Island Food Systems Lab moves collective learning into testing and action, through structured 180-day prototype sprints.
The next Summit
Anticipated. A third Island Food Systems Summit to gather again, share what we tested and learned, and decide what comes next.
We are not starting over. We are carrying the work forward.
Post-Summit Virtual Convening
Reconnect with fellow participants, review the harvest, help validate what was captured, identify what still needs refinement, confirm areas of interest, and begin deciding what we want to carry forward into 2027.
After registering, you will receive a Zoom confirmation email with how to join.
Where would you like to go next?
Interconnected. Self-sustaining. Rooted.
In the World Café we imagined our food systems fifty years from now: what we must remember, what we must repair, what we must build together. Here are the strongest patterns across every table.
The gist
- Participants imagined a Caribbean food system that is sovereign through relationship, rooted in culture, and living within ecological limits.
- Seven themes rose across every table. “Connect” was the most repeated idea of the day.
- Disagreement and open questions are kept here, not smoothed over.
Filter the themes by your part of the food system (optional)
People who
And the systems of
Showing all seven themes.
Seven themes from the World Café
This is an emerging synthesis, not a verbatim transcript or a declaration of consensus. Quotes come from table notes and handwritten sheets.
“Connect” was the most repeated idea of the day.Islands, generations, producers and markets, food and health, diaspora and home.
Five verbs for the future
Speak like a movement, not a program.
More from the conversation
In the tables’ own words
Nine closing statements, condensed, in the order shared+
In the tables’ own words
Nine closing statements, condensed, in the order sharedTensions we are holding
Not weaknesses. The harvest should not erase disagreement.+
Tensions we are holding
Not weaknesses. The harvest should not erase disagreement.Women, gender and decision-making
One of the longest recorded discussions, with strong concern and real disagreement+
Women, gender and decision-making
One of the longest recorded discussions, with strong concern and real disagreementWomen historically did much of the planting in Caribbean agriculture, while men held the licenses and decision-making power. Many women farmers in the Virgin Islands are struggling. Matriarchs keep family ritual and knowledge, and much is lost when a grandmother or mother passes. Another participant challenged the framing: dividing roles by gender is a Western construct that keeps people divided. The common ground was balance, and equal weight for women in leadership and decisions.
“If you teach a man, you teach an individual. If you teach a woman, you teach a nation.”
Questions to carry: Who owns and inherits land? Who holds licenses and finance? Whose knowledge is recognized? Who carries unpaid care work? How do we talk without dividing?
Raised less often, not less important
Edge signals the room may have lacked time, information or representation to explore+
Raised less often, not less important
Edge signals the room may have lacked time, information or representation to exploreWhat we must protect from this experience
Sovereignty does not mean isolation. It is collective capacity rooted in community realities.+
What we must protect from this experience
Sovereignty does not mean isolation. It is collective capacity rooted in community realities.We are exploring how to share photos of butcher paper, table notes and the full World Café harvest with participants. See People + Network.
From listening into shared design
In Open Space, participants chose the topics that mattered most and talked them through. In the Design Lab, groups sharpened each challenge, imagined the future, named what is already working, and proposed a direction with promise.
The gist
- Participants moved from listening into design: Inquire, Imagine, Move.
- The work gathered into ten action areas, from water and soil to sovereign institutions.
- Each area shows its challenge, emerging ideas and the detail behind them.
How the Design Lab worked: Inquire, Imagine, Move
What do we need to understand?
What we know, assume and wonder. Missing voices. What is already working.
What might move us toward the future?
What if? How might we? What could we connect or strengthen?
What direction has promise?
We propose to… Who needs to be involved? What might happen next?
How the work connects
Healthy soil holds water. Water grows food. Food returns to soil. Knowledge moves across generations, and care grows the institutions we need. All ten areas follow below.
Patterns that kept surfacing
We are not starting from zero
Every group named what is already working: brigades, hubs, greywater, farmers, returning knowledge, grassroots care.
Adapt, don’t import
“Not an American blueprint.” “How WE do things on OUR island.” “Difference is generative.”
Reciprocity and interdependence
“You showed up for us…” “Sovereignty is not individual.” “We brigade water together.”
Economics sits under everything
Low farm salaries, costly compost and water, insurance gaps. People’s needs must be met first.
Change at many levels at once
Nearly every group named several levels, from the household and the inner self to the region.
Youth are the most-named missing voice
As authors and decision makers, not audiences.
Whose voice is missing?
Who each Open Space group said still needs to be at the table+
Whose voice is missing?
Who each Open Space group said still needs to be at the table| Conversation | Youth | Grassroots / most affected | Government | Farmers / neighbors | Diaspora | Other |
|---|
The worksheets we used
Design Lab and Move Forward sheets+
The worksheets we used
Design Lab and Move Forward sheetsPossibilities, not promises
These are the strongest opportunities and shared priorities to come out of the Summit. Not every idea is a VI Good Food commitment, so we label each one honestly.
The gist
- Ten areas have energy behind them.
- Every idea is labeled: what participants expressed, what VI Good Food is exploring, and what is approved.
- All areas are at the listening stage. Sprint work begins in 2027.
Who said it, and how far along it is
What you said matters
Ideas, needs and directions named in the World Café, Open Space and Design Lab. They belong to the people who raised them.
- All ten action areas and their proposed directions
- A regional food systems manifesto and committee
- Keeping the network connected
Starting points we drafted
Possible 180-day sprints synthesized from your directions. Groups can adopt, adapt, combine or set them aside.
- Ten possible sprint outlines, below
- A best-estimation theory of change
- Which areas are ready for pre-sprint conversation
What is confirmed
Commitments VI Good Food has made and resourced.
- This microsite, returning the harvest
- The Post-Summit Virtual Convening on November 5, 2026
- The Island Food Systems Lab, as a confirmed direction for 2027. Its structure, priorities and first prototype sprints will be shaped through the post-Summit process.
Ten areas with energy
Each opportunity shows the need that led to it, who might be part of it, what we still need to learn, and where it stands today.
All areas are at the listening stage as of October 2026. Stages will update as working groups meet. Sprint work does not begin until 2027.
Questions to hold together
From Summit to movement
2026 is for harvesting, reconnecting and making meaning together. Structured 180-day prototype sprints begin in 2027. Connect. Strengthen. Test. Learn. Move. We are not promising to solve everything.
The gist
- 2026: we return the harvest, reconnect, and hold conversations by area.
- The Post-Summit Virtual Convening is Thursday, November 5, 2026, at 2:00 PM AST. Registration is open.
- 2027 brings the Island Food Systems Lab and 180-day sprints. A next Summit is anticipated in 2028.
Join the next conversation
Reconnect with fellow participants, review the harvest, help validate what was captured, identify what still needs refinement, confirm areas of interest, and begin deciding what we want to carry forward into 2027.
Every carried-forward area will meet at least once before the end of 2026.
After registering, you will receive a Zoom confirmation email with how to join.
Timeline
- September 9–13, 2026
We gathered
Island Food Systems Summit II, St. Thomas.
- October 2026 · You are here
Returning the harvest
This microsite opens. We share what we heard and ask you to validate it.
- November 5, 2026
Post-Summit Virtual Convening
Participants reconnect to review the harvest, validate the emerging synthesis, identify what still needs refinement, and begin organizing around the areas they want to carry forward.
- Late 2026
Pre-sprint conversations
People self-organize around the areas they care about. Each area names the people who will help hold it.
- Ongoing through 2026
Making meaning
Identifying patterns, refining a best-estimation theory of change, and naming potential prototype areas.
- 2027
The Island Food Systems Lab opens
Structured 180-day prototype sprints begin, shaped by the interest and capacity of those who show up.
- 2028 · Anticipated
The next Island Food Systems Summit
Gathering again to share what we tested and learned, and to decide what comes next.
Gatherings
2:00 PM AST
Post-Summit Virtual Convening
All participants. Online. Review and validate the harvest together.
Island Food Systems Lab launch
The work continues through collaborative learning, experimentation and action across the food system.
Island Food Systems Lab
An emerging space where participants move from collective learning into testing, collaboration, documentation and action.
The Lab will hold the 180-day prototype sprints. Its shape will come from what we confirm together in 2026.
“We are gathered to become good ancestors to a world still being born.”Sommer Sibilly-Brown, VI Good Food, from the Summit welcome
Find where you want to move
The invitation is not “join a VI Good Food project.” Every level of participation is legitimate, and interest does not equal a commitment to lead.
VI Good Food’s role: convener and steward of the harvest, not automatically the implementer
Return and connect
Make sure participants can see what was generated, and help people working on similar issues find one another.
Create containers
Meeting space, facilitation, communications, this microsite and the Lab, and coordination where useful.
Support partner leadership
Lead where it fits our mission and capacity. Where another organization is positioned to lead, support rather than duplicate.
Raise your hand
Tell us which conversations or areas you are interested in carrying forward, how you want to be involved, and what you might be able to offer.
Interest does not equal a commitment to lead.
This is different from registering for the convening. Register for the Convening saves your place at one meeting on November 5. Raise My Hand tells us about your longer-term interest in the work.
The form asks for
- Your name and email
- Organization, farm, vessel or community
- Your island, if you choose to share it
- Areas of interest
- How you would like to be involved
- Knowledge, skills, relationships or resources you could offer
- Optional: which possible 2027 prototypes interest you, and how you might take part
- Optional: whether you would like to hear about virtual meetings, workshops, partnerships and harvest content
- An optional message
- Optional: whether you would like to be in the participant directory
Opens a short Google Form in a new tab. Your answers go to the VI Good Food team and are not published.
Watch, look, hear
One home for the Summit’s stories, images, voices and data.
The gist
- Photographs, participant voices and Summit data, in one place.
- Summit video and more photographs will be added as they are ready.
Watch
Look
More photographs from the Summit are coming soon.
Hear
Explore the Data
Who was in the room
Self-reported roles of registered participants. People could choose more than one, so totals exceed 100%.
Exit evaluation
15 responses. A limited sample, so read these as signals rather than results.
The village continues
A place for Summit relationships, knowledge and shared work to continue taking shape.
The gist
- We intend to build a deeper way for participants to stay connected. Its form has not been decided, and we want participants to help shape it.
- The participant directory is opt-in. Being part of the Summit does not place you in it, and it is not searchable on this site.
- Being listed and sharing your contact details are separate choices, and you can change either one later.
The Summit created relationships, knowledge and possibilities that should not disappear when the gathering ends. We want to create a way for participants to stay connected and continue the work, but we are still determining what that space should become.
We know why this space matters. We are still figuring out what form it should take.
The goal is not to build another platform simply because we can. The goal is to create the right container for the relationships and work people want to continue. Rather than decide everything in advance, we want to learn what would actually help people stay connected and continue the work. Your experience, needs and preferences can help determine what is built.
Connection does not require public exposure.
What exists today
What we are exploring
Future participant-only ways to reconnect, share resources, continue conversations and collaborate. The structure, technology, access and features are not decided yet.
Would you like to be included in the participant directory?
VI Good Food is developing an opt-in participant directory to help Summit participants reconnect. It will not be published or searchable on this site. Once the right access model is in place, it will be shared through a protected participant process. Nothing is shared automatically, and the form offers three answers:
- Yes, I would like to be includedYou then choose what appears in your profile.
- Not yet, ask me laterYou are not listed. We may check in again.
- No, please do not include meYou are not listed.
If you say yes: what you choose to share
Profiles use the same four prompts from the Summit guidebook. Answer only the ones you want to. None are required.
Contact details are a separate choice
Appearing in the directory does not share your email, phone number, precise location or other contact information. You decide separately, including how you prefer to be contacted:
- Yes, I am comfortable sharing my preferred contact information with approved participants.
- Keep my contact information private and route introductions through VI Good Food.
- The directory is not public.
- Personal information is not automatically shared.
- You choose what appears.
- You may change your choice later.
Opens the same short Google Form as Raise My Hand, in a new tab. The directory choice is its last page. Only the profile details you choose are shared, and only with approved participants. Everything else stays with the VI Good Food team.
Relationship was an outcome.Inter-island collaboration, mutual aid, producer exchange, staying connected.
What could come next
Over time, this space may grow to include more ways for Summit participants to:
- Reconnect with one another
- Share resources and opportunities
- Follow areas of work emerging from the Summit
- Access recordings, notes, photographs and shared documentation
- Take part in conversations or working groups
- See where collaboration is beginning to form
We are exploring these possibilities with participants. None of them is promised yet, and whatever takes shape will protect participant privacy, consent and agency.
What you can do now
- Opt into the participant directory.Choose whether to be listed, what to share and how to be contacted.
- Raise your hand.Tell us which areas of work you want to stay connected to.
- Register for the November 5 Post-Summit Virtual Convening. (opens Zoom registration in a new tab)Thursday, November 5, 2026, 2:00 PM Atlantic Standard Time.
- Help us understand what kind of participant space would be useful.Tell us in the form, or bring it to the convening.