Colombia prepares for vanilla boom

Vanilla is “a product of time and patience,” says Cristian García Murillo. In 2016, his father planted vines around cacao trees on his farm in El Valle, a town on Colombia’s Pacific coast. Last year, Murillo sold 50kg of cured pods, partly supplied by local growers, to restaurants across the country. It’s a good business. A kilogram fetches 2.5 million pesos ($600), more than 100 times what fishermen in the region get for the same weight of tuna. Vanilla, an orchid, is native to Central and South America. Vines were smuggled from Mexico to Europe in the 18th century, and later implanted in Réunion, where a slave child figured out how to pollinate them by hand. Today, nearby Madagascar provides 80% of the world’s supply. Because vanilla is still pollinated by hand, it is the most expensive spice in the world after saffron. Demand has outstripped supply for years. Buyers are looking for new sources, such as Colombia. The rainforest surrounding El Valle is home to the popular ...