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ePaper created 2015-12-01, 11:30:18 | version 1.43.00
33akzente 1/15 COMMITMENT Madagascar is the world’s leading supplier of the ‘queen of spices’. In collaboration with GIZ, Symrise AG provides support to small farmers and their families in exchange for top-quality vanilla. Finest vanilla FOR a better life TEXT Timot Szent-Ivanyi PHOTOS GUY STUBBS R ené Totoantsarika finds the question highly amusing. ‘Vanilla ice cream?’ He wrinkles his brow. No, he says, he has never tried an- ything like that before. But he must have eaten something made with vanilla, the astonished visi- tor enquires. Totoantsarika thinks for a moment, leaning on his machete. A broad grin breaks out across his face: yes, of course, biscuits! He once tried biscuits made with vanilla. They tasted good, he recalls. The Madagascan, who is in his mid-forties, moves nimbly through the under- growth towards a tree covered in pea-green creep- ers. He checks their roots, gives the leaves a care- ful stroke, trims a few tendrils. This plant and others growing in this part of the forest are his treasure: René Totoantsarika is a vanilla farmer. And he is taking part in a programme set up by GIZ to improve the living conditions of small farmers in Madagascar. The GIZ programme is run in cooperation with Unilever and Symrise. Vanilla is not only one of the world’s fa- vourite spices, it is also one of the most expen- sive: as the ‘queen of spices’, it is second only to saffron in value. Today around 80 per cent of natural vanilla sold worldwide comes from Madagascar, and most of this is produced in the fertile Sava region in the north-east of the country. This is where Totoantsarika lives, in the village of Maroambihy. Totoantsarika patiently explains the la- bour-intensive process involved in vanilla production. The climbing plant grows best in the dense jungle and takes three years to produce its first flowers. Each flower has to be individually pollinated by hand, since the species of bees and hummingbirds spe- cialised in the vanilla orchid only exist in Central America. The plant produces its yel- low-green flowers one by one – and one by one these blossoms wilt after just a few hours. ‘The pollination process alone keeps me busy for weeks,’ Totoantsarika explains. He demonstrates how it is done: using a splinter of wood, he carefully lifts the rostel- lum and gently presses the pollen onto the tip of the stigma. The green pods he will eventually harvest only get their characteris- tic flavour and black colour much later, after fermentation. Business without the middleman Despite the time he invests in growing va- nilla, it is barely enough to provide a liveli- hood. Totoantsarika invites us into his home: a wooden hut measuring perhaps nine square metres and containing two beds for him, his wife and their five-year-old son and two-year- old daughter. A table and bookcase, a small radio, a torch and two suitcases with cloth- ing. Not far from the house is a small rice field, which Totoantsarika inherited from his parents. ‘But I can’t feed my family from that alone,’ he says. Totoantsarika generally sells the vanilla pods he harvests to intermediaries. But since prices fluctuate widely – in 2004 one kilogram of vanilla soared to 500 dollars on the world market, before crashing to just 20 dollars shortly afterwards – he never knows until mar- ket day how much he will get for his work. Many farmers are even forced by difficult» Sound investment develoPPP.de was set up by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Coop- eration and Development to foster the involvement of the private sector at the point where business opportunities and development policy initiatives intersect. develoPPP.de targets companies that in- vest in developing and emerging countries and provides them with financial and technical support. GIZ has been involved in more than 700 such partnerships since the year 1999. www.develoPPP.de » The fruits of labour: farming vanilla is a long and labour-intensive process – which explains why it is the world’s second most expensive spice.