# Arrowroot Association Established (1930)

URL: https://allhistories.com/saint-vincent-and-the-grenadines/timeline/1930-arrowroot-association-established
Location: Kingstown, Saint Vincent
Themes: main-event

Arrowroot, a starch extracted from the rhizomes of Maranta arundinacea, had been grown in Saint Vincent since the eighteenth century and became the island's signature export. Its fine, easily digested starch was used in biscuits, infant and invalid foods and later in industrial products, and Saint Vincent was the world's only significant commercial producer. In the first half of the twentieth century arrowroot accounted for roughly half of the colony's gross agricultural income. Prices fluctuated sharply, and growers, many of them smallholders on the windward side of the island, were at the mercy of merchants. A voluntary cooperative failed, and in 1930, as the Great Depression struck, the government set up a statutory arrowroot association. It was empowered to market and control all arrowroot produced in the colony for export, to promote research in cultivation, processing and marketing, and to build and operate central processing factories. The association gave the industry a single selling agency and some protection against price collapse, and it remained the central institution of the arrowroot trade for decades. Arrowroot, alongside Sea Island cotton, was the premier crop of the 1930s. The industry later declined in the face of competition from cheaper starches, but arrowroot remains a symbol of Vincentian agriculture. At this point in the timeline (1930), the King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, Emperor of India was George V (6 May 1910 – 20 January 1936); the Administrator of Saint Vincent was Herbert Walter Peebles (3 April 1929 – 3 May 1933).

## Why it matters
The association organised Saint Vincent's most distinctive export industry at a time when it supported thousands of rural families.

Ruler at the Time: [George V](https://allhistories.com/saint-vincent-and-the-grenadines/rulers/george-v)

Administrator of Saint Vincent: Herbert Walter Peebles

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Maranta arundinacea (arrowroot)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maranta_arundinacea)
- [ISTRC — The arrowroot industry of St Vincent (symposium paper)](https://istrc.net/images/Documents/Symposiums/First/1st_symposium_proceedings_vol2_0026_.pdf)
- [iWitness News — The future of arrowroot in SVG](https://www.iwnsvg.com/2025/04/27/the-future-of-arrowroot-in-svg/)
- [Wikipedia — Arrowroot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrowroot)
- [Wikipedia — Crown Colony And Labour Awakening (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_West_Indian_labour_unrest_of_1934%E2%80%931939)