Vanilla brings cash and crime to Madagascar

SAMBAVA, Madagascar — Bright moonlight reflected off broad banana leaves, but it was still hard to see the blue twine laced through the undergrowth, a tripwire meant to send the unwary tumbling to the ground.

“This is the way the thieves come,” said the vanilla farmer, lowering his voice and sweeping his flashlight beam over a ditch.

Each night the farmer, Ninot Oclin, 33, patrols his land in the foothills of a volcano in Madagascar, barefoot, with a bolt-action rifle slung over his shoulder. If he hears someone fall, he knows yet another bandit is trying to steal his lucrative crop of ripening vanilla.

The lush mountains in Madagascar’s northeast produce about 80 percent of the world’s vanilla, one of the most expensive flavors. Its price has soared, reaching more than $600 a kilogram this past year, or about $270 a pound — more than silver — compared with $50 a kilogram in 2013.

Growing Western demand for the flavoring is partly driving the price spike, with vanilla used in everything from ice cream to alcohol to cosmetics. Supply was diminished by a cyclone that ravaged crops last year on the island, which lies off the coast of southeast Africa.

With the perfect climate and soil for growing vanilla, the Sava region of Madagascar is in the midst of an economic boom.

So-called vanilla mansions have sprung up above traditional thatched grass huts. Even the humblest homes often boast solar panels and LED lights that make once-dark villages glow by night. Gleaming SUVs ply the broken streets of Sambava, the vanilla capital, where bustling markets line the roadsides.

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By Finbarr O’reilly