Handbook of Vanilla Science and Technology

The Fair Trade price provides the farmer with a profit margin, which allows him to sustain production over the long term. This includes preservation of natural resources including clean water, soil, plants, and animals. It also provides the capital required to reinvest in farm equipment, tools, and supplies required for ongoing production.

Fair Trade also provides the farmer with the income necessary to maintain an acceptable standard of living. This includes adequate shelter, food, clothing, education, and healthcare for the farmer and his family. The Fair Trade price includes a premium, which actually goes back to the cooperative or village, rather than the individual farmer. This money is used for a variety of community improvements, depending upon their specific needs. Examples are school and medical facilities and supplies, bridges, wells, and communications equipment such as cell phone towers and radios.

An acceptable standard of living applies not just to the farmer and his family, but to his employees as well. Fair Trade ensures that a safe working environment is maintained. Workers, particularly women and children, must not be exploited in any way. Unfortunately, from the coal mines in the United States a century ago to the diamond mines in South Africa today, exactly the opposite is often the case.

In summary, the principles of Fair Trade enable rural farmers in developing countries the ability to compete in the global marketplace. In many cases, without Fair Trade, they would otherwise have little contact outside their own villages, let alone with the rest of the world.

7.6 VANILLA AND FAIR TRADE

Vanilla is uniquely and ideally suited for Fair Trade. Virtually all vanilla grown throughout the world is grown by independent farmers in rural, sometimes even remote villages in developing countries. These farmers have limited access to their neighboring villages, let alone the global market place that Fair Trade offers.

Most farmers have limited means of transportation, perhaps a donkey or a bicycle. The roads are almost universally rudimentary. They are passable only with great discomfort and difficulty during the dry season and virtually impassable during the rainy season. Until the very recent spread of cell phone towers, farmers were basically isolated from the outside world. If Ben & Jerry’s were launching a new super premium ice cream made with Bourbon

Vanilla from Madagascar, the farmers who grew the vanilla beans would almost certainly be unaware of it.

Vanilla cultivation is uniquely compatible with the principles of Fair Trade. Vanilla grows best under a rain forest canopy. Native trees can be used to support the vines. As opposed to many other crops, there is no need for clear cutting virgin rain forests. Other vegetation can be used for mulching the roots of the vines.

In most origins, vanilla is grown without the use of chemical pesticides, fungicides, or fertilizers. They are simply too expensive. Instead, the vines are kept healthy by proper cultivation methods, which are passed down from one generation to the next. These include adequate spacing of the vines, well-drained soil, and not over pollinating the vines.

Virtually all vanilla grown in the world relies simply on a rainy climate for water. After the beans are harvested, the ideal curing technique involves almost exclusively solar energy. Alternate methods, such as oven drying, are used only during long periods of cloudy weather. Some origins do use ovens and wood fires more extensively for curing, but the flavor profile is generally inferior to beans cured in the sun. Since vanilla cultivation and curing is extremely labor intensive, keeping labor costs low is extremely important. In addition, because of the manual dexterity required, it has traditionally been done by women and sometimes children. In general, working conditions are safe and workers in the vanilla industry are treated fairly. They are often family members or neighbors. However, there is a clear incentive to keep wages low and possibility of exploitation does exist.

There is very little in the way of invested capital required to grow vanilla, so the profits from Fair Trade Vanilla can be channeled towards food, clothing, shelter, and other aspects of an acceptable standard of living.