Turns out that vanilla isn't such a "vanilla" topic in Mada, as you might imagine. Apparently a few decades ago, the price of vanilla beans dropped drastically, so global production largely slowed. Now there's a bit of a conundrum, as demand for vanilla has wildly increased as a result of companies like Nestle and Whole Foods wanting to use more "natural" (whatever that means) products in their food. Now Mada, which apparently produces half (!!) the world's vanilla beans, is trying to meet that demand. Unfortunately, that seems to be because vanilla farmers are paid roughly $1.50 a day, instead of $10.00, which is the global average. In order to try to meet this increase in demand, farmers in Mada are harvesting earlier and packaging the beans - evidently this is akin to picking grapes for wine way before they're ready. The plot thickens, as there's a black market for green vanilla beans! There are people using money that they got from illegal money to buy green vanilla beans and sell as a legal mechanism to make money - indeed, this is money laundering. Now Mada is blocking exports of green vanilla beans!
Check it out here:
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/madagascar-moves-to-protect-its-vanilla-market/
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ReplyDeleteIt is amazing that Madagascar alone cane produce half of the world's vanilla beans! It surely is something I don't think about when eating vanilla! I wonder if this contributes to the fact that land is being converted for agriculture.
ReplyDelete- Joanna Langner