It was once an industry that worked to the benefit of rich and poor alike. Then a tropical storm combined with a technological breakthrough to cause catastrophe.
They call them "green gold" in Ntenjeru. The long, curving pods that hang among the banana trees are so valuable that security guards are employed to protect them.
The gold is the fruit of the orchid planifolia, better known as vanilla, the heady seed which has developed into a £2-billion (almost R25-billion) industry, flavouring the tastes of rich Western economies.
In places such as Ntenjeru, a lush corner of Uganda, and Madagascar, the world's largest producer of vanilla, four years of rapidly increasing prices have brought a rare windfall, funding "luxuries" that include full-time education, a permanent roof, 4x4s and even extra wives. But, suddenly, all is not well in the vanilla plantations of the developing world.
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In 2003, the sweetest spice of all was selling for up to $300 a kilogram. But on Thursday, as several hundred tons of raw, green pods were being gathered in Uganda, and Madagascar was preparing for the biggest harvest in its history, the price of vanilla had plummeted to $4 a kilogram.
The reason for this catastrophic decline is twofold. Much of the bonanza of recent years was due to Cyclone Hudah, the tropical storm that tore through Madagascar in 2000, destroying a quarter of its crop and causing a worldwide shortage of natural vanilla.
More worrying for the world's vanilla farmers, most of whom are smallholders with little more than an acre of this most labour-intensive of crops, is that the shortage is spurring their Western customers to turn to biotechnology to produce their vanilla flavour.
The result is a sense of crisis in the vanilla industry, a normally sedate trade where each plant takes three years to mature, is pollinated by hand and then takes nine months to produce a pod - The Independent
- This article was originally published on page 10 of The Mercury on August 20, 2004
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