Value chains and open communities: Vágur and Tvøroyri in the Faroes

Over the last two decades, there have been fundamental changes in value chains in Tvøroyri and Vágur, two coastal towns on the outer Faroese island of Suðuroy. Until the end of the 20th century, the economic foundation was the locally owned fish filleting factories and their production of mainly fresh and frozen codfish from a local fishing fleet. Though, in the early 1990s, the Faroes suffered a severe economic crisis, and outlying towns like Tvøroyri and Vágur were hit hard. As seen in many other fishery-dependent communities in the Nordic Atlantic, there was a relocation of, and a significant reduction in, local demersal fisheries. This was followed by a rise in capital- and resource-intensive industries such as aquaculture and pelagic fisheries, and in other sectors such as tourism. These new or intensified value chains fostered occupational diversity in the local labour market, contributing to the last decade’s relative stabilisation of the population size.