Why is the economist magazine so expensive
Why is vanilla so expensive? | The Economist
from ice cream to cakes and even perfume
vanilla is the go-to flavor the world
over in recent years the price of
natural vanilla has shot up at one point
it was more expensive than silver by
weight
80% of the world's vanilla is grown in
the perfect lead climate of the
Northeast region of Madagascar it's the
country's primary export crop for the
farmers like Benny Oh Don life's far
sweeter when the vanilla price is high
the alchemy 11 even it's nothing
patrol additionally we confine actually
the venison Mesa fluctuating in 2014
vanilla was 80 dollars a kilo three
years later it was 600 today it's around
$500 the price rises due in part to
global demand the trend of eating
naturally means that food companies have
shunned synthetic flavoring in favour of
the real deal penny and the other
farmers are cashing in the una prisa
decision affirmed our own movie Avatar
Tara pianta loudly Charlie Feeney
but things can change very quickly price
fluctuations affect producers of
agricultural commodities everywhere but
vanilla is particularly volatile in just
a few weeks the price can jump or
plummet by over 20% dang Amazon or Sofia
I had seen the busy city surrounded
liberalization is one reason for such
movements the Malagasy government once
regulated the vanilla industry and its
price but now the price is negotiated at
the point of sale which makes for a
freer market but a more volatile one
it's also a tiny industry a single
cyclone can knock up the entire crop
with in Madagascar it's also a difficult
and delicate crop to grow
vanilla is an orchid that needs to be
hand pollinated this is a really really
labor-intensive practice if anyone has
grown a an orchid at home you experience
how difficult it is to keep an orchid
alive in your house now try growing this
in the middle of a Malagasy rainforest
it takes roughly six months to grow it
on the vine and then six months of
manual post harvesting now the
interesting thing about vanilla is you
need to take it off the vine when it's
almost rotted the growers have to
contend with another problem thieves are
targeting the vanilla crops so Malagasy
now are sleeping out in their vanilla
fields they can't rely on those who are
charged from the state to protect them
or protect their crop they're having to
take matters into their own hands and
this has really caused some some
problems vigilante justice and a whole
host of other violence connected to
vanilla some farmers have resorted to
harvesting the beans before they're
right but this produces a poorer quality
vanilla and ultimately pushes down the
price
the combination of deteriorating quality
and high prices is having an effect
the vanilla price bubble may burst of
the price continues to stay high there's
a number of scenarios that play out we
can continue as as we are now and have a
relatively unstable market where farmers
are growing vanilla under very very
distressful conditions of theft and
violence you could have the state and
corporate sectors afton violence try to
reregulate the market in some way that
might stabilize prices and also quality
or you might just have the market crash
up big buyers that provide vanilla for
the likes of haagen-dazs and Ben and
Jerry's and now working directly with
farmers in a bid to gain greater control
over quality other companies have
started to look elsewhere for their
natural vanilla Indonesia Uganda and
even the Netherlands are growing the
crop
for a century Madagascar has enjoyed a
near monopoly on vanilla but this
industry may be in line for a radical
overhaul
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