Vanilla fever in Madagascar
After decades of stagnation, in 2015 the price of vanilla shot up from around $50 per kilo to a staggering $600 per kilo. For a time, it became more valuable, pound for pound, than silver. In the lush hills of northern Madagascar, where some 80% of the world's supply originates, the price increase prompted a frenzy of planting, processing, trading and spending. The crop became so lucrative that farmers had to start sleeping in their fields at night to prevent their pods being stolen. But even while unprecedented wealth flowed into the region capital, some of it trickling down to remote vanilla-growing villages in the mountains, there was a sense that the boom was not here to last.
After decades of stagnation, in 2015 the price of vanilla shot up from around $50 per kilo to a staggering $600 per kilo. For a time, it became more valuable, pound for pound, than silver. In the lush hills of northern Madagascar, where some 80% of the world's supply originates, the price increase prompted a frenzy of planting, processing, trading and spending. The crop became so lucrative that farmers had to start sleeping in their fields at night to prevent their pods being stolen. But even while unprecedented wealth flowed into the region capital, some of it trickling down to remote vanilla-growing villages in the mountains, there was a sense that the boom was not here to last.