How the Climate Crisis and Aid Cuts Could Devastate Global Supplies of Vanilla

The region known as Sava in Madagascar – roughly the same size as Wales – is responsible for around 80 per cent of the world’s vanilla crop. While vanilla was first cultivated by the Maya in the forests of Mexico, it is in this region, in the northeast of Madagascar, that it found a home for modern times, after French colonists brought over the vanilla orchid in the 1880s.

Chemical synthesis of the single vanillin chemical may have driven the “vanilla” to become the world’s most popular fragrance, found in everything from makeup to bug repellants, and now a term synonymous with blandness and mediocrity. But connoisseurs maintain that no laboratory product can match the subtle, creamy-rich flavour of the natural aroma, which contains nearly 200 chemical molecules.

Madgascar’s climate and soil proved ideal for vanilla, giving pods a higher concentration of natural vanillin than those grown in other markets. A large pool of smallholder farmers is also readily available to grow this labour-intensive plant, which is essentially a delicate vine that grows between the trees of the rainforest. Individual pods must all be picked by hand, before being blanched in hot water, massaged, and left to cure in the sun over a three-month period.