Colombia prepares for vanilla boom

the vanilla “It’s the product of time and patience,” says Cristian García Murillo. In 2016, his father planted vines around the cacao trees on his farm in El Valle, a city on Colombia’s Pacific coast. Last year, Murillo sold 50 kilograms of processed pods, partly supplied by local farmers, to restaurants across the country. It’s good business. A kilogram sells for 2.5 million pesos ($600), more than 100 times what fishermen in the region get for the same weight of tuna.

Vanilla, an orchid, is native to Central and South America. In the 18th century, vines were smuggled from Mexico to Europe, and later planted in Reunion, where a slave discovered how to pollinate it by hand. Today, neighboring Madagascar supplies 80 percent of the world’s supply. Because vanilla is still pollinated by hand, it is the world’s most expensive spice after saffron. Demand has outstripped supply for years. Buyers are looking to new sources, like Colombia.

The rainforests surrounding El Valle are home to vanilla plants, a very popular species. In the past eight years, around 200 vanilla farms have opened, run by community councils, with support from the Swissaid charity. Their production provides much-needed income. Around two-thirds of the population of Chocó, the region where El Valle is located, earn less than $3.50 a day.

The El Valle Planifolia leaves are genetically different from the common ones and continue to be pollinated by bees, giving them a special scent. Alejandro Henao Pérez, Colombian director of MANE, the French perfume giant, recently bought samples to try. According to him, vanilla’s appeal also lies in its environmental credentials, which attract many consumers. When the vine wraps around the trees, it gives locals an economic incentive not to cut them down.

Production will have to be scaled up quickly. Manny says he will need at least a ton of dried pods a year, more than double what the El Valle municipal-run company hopes to buy from producers this year. More investment is needed in training, quality control and marketing. Removing the pods from the Chocó region, which has few roads, is expensive. In addition, genetic engineers are working on a variety of autogamous genes. However, for Alejandro Alvarez of Selva Nevada, an organic ice cream shop in Bogotá, the “incredible flavor” of the Pacific bean dispels those concerns.

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