Correction from The Vanilla Queen on my Vanilla blog

A couple of details regarding vanilla that weren't accurate. Vanilla is never factory farmed. The largest farms might be 20 - 30 hectares; most are 1 or 2 hectares -- about five acres maximum. Vanilla is not planted from seed. They plant cuttings that are trellised up trees, cement posts, or something else to hold them in place. They must have shade from the sun. Vanilla is a very ecologically sustainable crop.

The reason we're losing pure vanilla is because the corporations are using imitation vanilla or the spent ground vanilla beans from the extraction process and calling the products "pure." Prices are extremely low. As vanilla is the most labor-intensive crop in the world, the farmers can't afford to grow it when they get paid so little.

What happened in 2002 is that many of the farmers had torn up their crops because they couldn't afford to keep growing it. Then there were two hurricanes that took out 30% of the Madagascar crop. Mexico had a major flood and Sumatra had a drought. There wasn't enough vanilla.

Everyone planted, of course, when they saw how much vanilla was selling for. There was a glut on the market and the prices collapsed in late 2004/early 2005. Since then the prices have been rock bottom again.

When the farmers can't make enough for their vanilla, they often overpollinate the flowers (and each is hand pollinated) in an effort to make up in volume what they've lost in price. By doing this it stresses the plants. Do it two years in a row and the fusarium, which is in the soil all the time, attacks the weakened plants and kills them. A plantation can be wiped out in a matter of weeks when this happens and the soil must be rested and not used for several years.

If we go into another crisis, the big corporations feel prepared this time and will simply substitute the newer generation of imitation vanilla; some never went back to the pure after the last crisis. And what concerns me is that the public will grow accustomed to the flavor of imitation and won't care that it isn't pure. If the prices continue to be low for the farmers they'll shift to another crop and eventually few, if any, farmers will grow vanilla.

All this is to say, factory farming had nothing to do with it; it's largely about corporate greed yet again!