With vanilla prices witnessing a nearly 300 per cent rise over the past nine months, farmers in Kerala and Karnataka have started cultivating the spice again.
Green beans now command anything between Rs 400 and Rs 600 a kg, depending on the quality, up from Rs 130-140 a year ago.
M C Saju, director, Vanilla India Producers Company (Vanilco), told Business Standard that a one-metre vine now costs Rs 20. It had no value at all a year ago. During 2000-2004, the golden period of cultivation, good quality vine had a price tag of Rs 100-150 a metre.
Cultivation was active Kerala and Karnataka during 1999-2005, when prices skyrocketed in the global market. Then, green beans fetched up to Rs 1,200 a kg, largely because of a bad production season in Madagascar, the world’s largest producer. As production resumed in Madagascar, vanilla prices crashed to as low as Rs 50 a kg, following which farmers stopped cultivating the spice.
Now the prices are up again. Saju claimed Vanilco is getting offers of Rs 20,000 for a kg of vanilla extract, which had no takers even at Rs 5,000 last year. Vanilco has a stock of 400 kg of vanilla extract.
