Today we’re talking about—what I find to be—one of the strangest discordances in specialty cacao and chocolate making; vanilla. Now, I’m not advocating for every bar to include vanilla (I’ve been taught—conditioned rather—that you shouldn’t, or wouldn’t want to mask cacao’s natural glory), but I find it unfortunate that an ingredient which holds many more similarities to cacao than others, as well as often the same environmental cultivation areas, doesn’t find more harmony amongst chocolate makers, tasters and judges around the world. “What grows together, goes together” worked for Mesoamerican peoples who first paired the two native species in heirloom drinking recipes. Yet somehow in the most recent push of fine cacao and chocolate certification programs and symposiums, we’ve relegated it primarily to the theory and practice of Big Industry. Alas, I wish for more true vanilla in confectionery and eating experiences, whether it becomes the star or an essential inclusion/seasoning—and hope we’ll see more chocolate companies embracing transparent relationships and crediting their partners for a bouquet that very well may have grown intertwined next to each other, and therefore needn’t be separated but exalted for its indelible companionship and commonalities.
To familiarize ourselves with the world of Malagasy vanilla, I had the fortune to receive an enthusiastic “yes” to this interview from Dr. Dominic Martin. He asked if he could bring along a colleague, PhD student Anjaharinony Andry Ny Aina Rakotomalala, and of course I was delighted to have widened the perspective to more people who have both lived and studied, and one that resides in the country. Dr. Martin is what I am dubbing a “prolific Twitter scientist” meaning that he is known for crafting informative, digestible threads (with pictures and graphs!) around his work. A recent installment (below) announcing their latest publication is especially effective in showcasing key themes of their research, and giving context to this episode. Please note this audio was recorded February 3, 2022. Much has occurred since then, including natural and human-made disasters such as, various tropical cyclones making landfall on the island, human rights violations following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with global food insecurities and disruptions that experts are projecting will be the worst since WWII.
Madagascar is globally recognized for its Bourbon vanilla, and its cacao also receives tremendous praise—every year with more zeal. Many of us reading this probably recall the exact moment we discovered the :shocking: differentiation between mass-produced chocolates and the bright intensity brought about by chocolates made with Malagasy beans. When we talk about biodiversity, agroforestry, reforestation and land cultivation, we are also talking about portals to flavor. The diversity of what’s on our plate can parlay into the wealth and assortment of the forests and lands producers plant, tend and harvest from. Rather, the potential and richness of what the forests were innately born to create, can be the food future we adore and champion—all the while bringing ecological variety, healthy ecosystems, as well as security and economic benefit to its stewards. What we know from researchers like Dr. Martin and Andry is that land-use isn’t “set in soil”; we can build (new, new-but-old) systems—even within international markets and capitalism—that promote the health of planet and people, and provide both opportunities to diversify and go beyond subsistence. It’s never as simple as two or three ingredients, but your role in this might start today with more questions to your suppliers about the vanilla beans, cocoa and sugar in your pantry and/or manufactory.
In this episode we discuss complex land systems, and it can be complex! Here are some terms mentioned and quick definitions.
Fallow lands; arable land (used or suitable for crops), yet not cultivated for the current crop season
Shifting cultivation; a rotational farming technique (e.g. slash and burn is a type of this); plots of land are cultivated temporarily and then abandoned, during which vegetation is allowed to grow freely, and the farmer moves on to another plot
Themes discussed:
To start we touched on a couple of the building blocks of agroforestry vocabulary: Land-use versus land management.
Ecosystems and agricultural productivity.
+ Local crops for subsistence like rice and jackfruit; there is greater crop diversity in agroforesty system.
+ Importance of timber from the forests to build homes (cool fact: many are outfitted with solar energy)
+ Livestock and animal husbandry — in the western area of Madagascar it is more common for cattle, then they move herds over the mountains for sale.
Fixing market instability — are there possible solutions?
The main risks for farmers:
Speculative market and inconsistent harvests make it too risky to only grow vanilla for local farmers. Within northern Madagascar, there are various tiers of who grows it, and who benefits more than others, for example those that achieve rice subsistence and also farm vanilla, on a whole do better than village/region populations that have to buy rice whilst farming vanilla. The most vulnerable—and subsequently most marginalized—struggled to maintain vanilla agroforestry systems during time periods of boom and local inflation. Many of them become sharecroppers, renting land for shifting cultivation. This positioning hinders these farmers from tending to vanilla cultivation, and if they do get into the trade, they must invest in inputs. It might be the case that once the vines are ready for harvest, the market may have fallen out from under them (again).
Security issues: theft of vanilla is at times embellished by media, but it is a real, serious issue that impacts entire communities and harms trust within circles.
We also talked about the labor intensity of vanilla to arrive at a matured, cured, finished and transported pod!
+ After planting, it takes three years for first flowers to bloom (not all will flower every year); flowering once a year in Oct, November, or December roughly.
+ Continuous weeding is required, as is hand pollination, with often low yields.
+ Each household tends to about 1/2 hectare of vanilla agroforests.
+ There is significant weight loss on dried/black vanilla versus fresh/green vanilla; 5x lighter after curing—however more can be transported on the back of a motorbike when finished.
+ Buyers / intermediaries directly purchase from rural communities, as getting market access is near impossible with state of roads and infrastructure.
Quotables:
“it matters where the agroforest is established”
“species suffer from any kind of forest conversion”
”when prices are low (on the market), they are far too low”
On buying vanilla as a consumer:
Per their recommendations, focus on buying from “open land derived agroforestry sources,” ensuring sure/stable prices, e.g. creating a dialogue with your buyers that you never buy below X (and thus they shouldn’t be paying less than). Try to gain an understanding of the vanilla value chain—how much is staying with the farmers? How much are the exporters/retailers receiving?
Guest Bios:
Dr. Dominic Martin is a geographer and ecologist. His research focuses on sustainability transformations in land systems, aiming at informing policies that improve outcomes for people and nature. Specifically, he works towards understanding trade-offs and co-benefits between biodiversity, ecosystem services, and agricultural productivity and how these are affected by land management practices, including forest restoration and agroforestry. For his PhD, he worked in smallholder agricultural land systems in Madagascar, investigating how vanilla agroforests can be managed to serve biodiversity, ecosystem services and yields. The interdisciplinary work further compared vanilla cultivation to forest and land under shifting cultivation, highlighting the importance of land-use history in land system science. His background in Geography and Ecology equips him with knowledge on a range of approaches from plot-based field data collection using transdisciplinary methods, to meta research. Currently, he works as a PostDoc at the Wyss Academy for Nature at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and the Department of Geography at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. His website is www.martin.science and you can connect with him on Twitter at @Dominic_Mart.
Anjaharinony Andry Ny Aina Rakotomalala is a PhD student at the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar. In his research, he looks at the effects of land-use change on biodiversity in north-eastern Madagascar. Specifically, assessing the value of vanilla agroforests for biodiversity conservation, compared with vanilla from other prevalent land-use types in the region such as: forest fragment, fallow lands and rice paddies. His research is part of the transdisciplinary project “Diversity Turn in Land Use Science” investigating the socioeconomic and ecological impact of vanilla farming in Madagascar. Find him on Twitter at @Andry_Ny_Aina.
Read their latest Diversity Turn publication here.
Other related links and things I learned about or referenced while researching this post:
Malagasy zebu (local cattle)
Most recent UN report on climate change
Primatologist Alison Richard on Madagascar’s biodiversity
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