KOCHI: Vanilla India Producer Company Limited (Vanilco) has suggested that farmers grow vanilla as an intercrop and that they should learn to qualitatively process vanilla. Farmers should also not make haste to raise production immediately but use only organic inputs, said Mathew Varghese, Director of the producer company.

He was making a presentation on the future of vanilla cultivation at a seminar on Managing Agriculture in Kerala organised by the Sree Narayana Guru Institute of Science and Technology, North Paravur.

Call to forge unity

Farmers should also build up unity among themselves, said Mr. Varghese as he also suggested that farmers ensured that they bought products in which only natural vanilla was used.

This was specially so for food products like bakery items, ice-creams, etc.

He said vanilla cultivation was spread over 5,000 hectares and around 80,000 farmers were involved in it since vanilla cultivation spread on a mass basis since 1999.

In the year 2000, vanilla was confined to Kerala and Karnataka. During the 1999-2000 period, a metre of vanilla vine cost Rs.6 and raw vanilla beans fetched Rs.250 a kg while processed vanilla beans was priced at between Rs.3,000 and 3,500 a kg.

Vanilla prices began to move up during 2001and by the year 2002, the price of raw vanilla beans stood at Rs.3,500 a kg while cured beans cost as high as Rs.25,000 a kg. And, price rise led to rapid spread of vanilla cultivation in the country.

The unprecedented price rise led to vanilla users to switch to synthetic vanillin or to vanillin extracted from other sources.

Today, the price of raw vanilla beans ruled lower than Rs.150 a kg and in 2003-04 when no company entered the market to procure vanilla, Vanilco was formed with more than 1,000 farmers taking shares in the venture.

Mr. Varghese said that Vanilco still expected the situation to improve. India still imported about 800 tonnes of synthetic substitutes for natural vanillin. Vanilco suggested that the Spices Trading Corporation (STCL) should buy vanilla stock from Vanilco, the money from which would be used to pay off the farmers. In turn, Vanilco will take vanilla stock from STCL as their products are sold.

The Vanilco official suggested that the Union Government should control the import of synthetic vanillin and make use of natural vanillin mandatory in food products.

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