{"id":24031,"date":"2018-09-04T11:52:26","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T16:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/panamaadvisoryinternationalgroup.com\/blog\/?p=24031"},"modified":"2018-09-06T10:56:49","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T15:56:49","slug":"vanilla-spice-floridas-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/panamaadvisoryinternationalgroup.com\/blog\/vanilla-spice-floridas-agriculture\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanilla could spice up Florida\u2019s agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the tropical climes of South Florida, there are researchers trying to breed the state\u2019s next commercial crop.<\/p>\n

It could be vanilla.<\/p>\n

Products like vanilla extract and beans that flavor ice creams and lace perfumes come from plants in the genusVanilla<\/i>, part of the orchid family.<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s farmers might want to look into the plant\u2019s tasty potential as a valuable secondary crop.<\/p>\n

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The spice could be nice for Florida\u2019s agriculture and may help solve a budding global dilemma.<\/p>\n

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\n\"vanilla <\/picture>\n
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A botanical illustration of Vanilla planifolia from 1897.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A not so vanilla problem<\/b><\/h3>\n

Consumers take the world\u2019s second most-prized spice (after saffron) for granted, but the vanilla industry is facing major challenges:<\/p>\n

? <\/span>Vanilla prices have skyrocketed in recent years as major food brands attempt to go all-natural<\/a>, dumping the artificial flavor vanillin. Vanilla is now more valuable<\/a> than silver, selling for around $600 a kilogram.<\/p>\n

? <\/span>Climate change and geopolitical challenges are impacting world vanilla suppliers like Madagascar<\/a> and Mexico<\/a>, contributing to price rise and global supply instability. In 2017, a cyclone hit Madagascar, killing at least 81 people and damaging 30 percent of the crop. Vanilla farmers on the island country risk their lives<\/a> defending the precious crops from thieves.<\/p>\n

? <\/span>Most of the industry currently relies on one species of vanilla orchid, Vanilla planifolia, <\/i>leaving the bulk of the world\u2019s supply susceptible to an opportunistic disease or pest. The banana industry is currently facing such a crisis as Panama disease obliterates the world\u2019s most popular banana<\/a>, the Cavendish.<\/p>\n

Vanilla in Florida?<\/b><\/h3>\n

Vanilla production in Florida could open up a niche economy for the state and help diversify its agricultural offerings.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany growers are looking at alternative crops not only as a new or additional revenue stream, but also as a way to have some risk diversity with ag,\u201d said Sonia Tighe, executive director of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association. The association is an advocacy group for Florida growers that funds and promotes research of specialty crops.<\/p>\n

Matt Adair is the lead researcher with the Florida Research Center for Agricultural Sustainability. The center primarily works with citrus growers and former citrus growers, many of whom are still reeling from citrus greening.<\/p>\n

Adair says that they are always looking for promising new crops.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of growers, at least in citrus, have either sold to development or they have pushed their citrus farms and put cattle on them to keep their ag exempt status,\u201d Adair said. \u201cThey\u2019re looking for new things to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, the center began exploring the possibilities of crops like peaches, hops and pomegranates.<\/p>\n

As for vanilla, Adair says, \u201cAnybody would be interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\"vanilla <\/picture>\n
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One day, Floridians could be baking with vanilla grown in their home state.<\/div>\n
Goran Kosanovic <\/span> The Washington Post <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

To make things even sweeter, vanilla farming in Florida would not necessarily require more acreage.<\/p>\n

Existing tree orchards could double as vanilla farms, said Alan Chambers, an assistant professor of genetics and the breeding of tropical fruit with University of Florida.<\/p>\n

Avocado trees, with their height and shady canopy, would be an ideal structure for vine-like vanilla plants to climb.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call them tutor trees,\u201d Chambers said. \u201cIn terms of co-cropping you want a shade tree that\u2019s long-lived and doesn\u2019t require a lot of chemical inputs like fungicides or insecticides. It\u2019s a lower cost option for getting into the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCo-cropping\u201d the vanilla with avocado, citrus or nut trees on existing farms would mean getting more use out of the same piece of land, a win-win for growers and the environment.<\/p>\n

Compared to traditional monoculture, the dual system would have its challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a reason that we grow monocultures; it\u2019s much simpler to control pests and optimize production,\u201d Chambers said. \u201cBut we like the idea of same land, more sources of income.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\"vanillerie <\/picture>\n
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Vanilla plants grow in a monoculture in a shade house at The Vanillerie, a small vanilla farm in Hawaii.<\/div>\n
The Vanillerie <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Another option for growing vanilla in Florida is monoculture in shade houses. The simple and relatively inexpensive structures can sustain the right conditions for plants to thrive and enable more intensive production.<\/p>\n

Chambers\u2019 vanilla research started with some prodding from his boss via email.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a Scientific American article<\/a> discussing some of the problems they are having with vanilla,\u201d Chambers said. \u201cSome of these are cyclic issues with increases in prices and challenges with supply and quality of supply. So I started looking into it. The problem with orchids is that you tend to get obsessed very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chambers soon found a seemingly overlooked paper. It detailed an attempt to grow a commercial vanilla industry in Puerto Rico in the early 1900s. The efforts had promise, and were even subsidized by the Roosevelt administration<\/a>, but tapered off when industrial production took over the island\u2019s economy in the 1940s.<\/p>\n

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Vanilla Cultivation in Puerto Rico<\/a> by Ryan Ballogg<\/a> on Scribd<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Still, the paper offers one example of how such an industry might work: individual growers combining into co-ops that would then process and sell beans to the flavor industries.<\/p>\n

According to Tighe, it\u2019s a model that has potential.<\/p>\n

Growers of citrus, tomatoes and sweet corn have successfully utilized co-ops to boost their selling power.<\/p>\n

And with the recent trend towards eating locally and sustainably, Floridians may want to buy vanilla straight off the farm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho doesn\u2019t want something that\u2019s local and delicious?\u201d Chambers said.<\/p>\n

Vanilla blueprints<\/b><\/h3>\n

There are years of research to do before vanilla is determined commercially viable in Florida.<\/p>\n

Existing varieties of vanilla will grow in the state, but Chambers says there is a lot of room for improvement.<\/p>\n

A piece of the puzzle might come from remote South Florida swamps, the home of the state\u2019s native vanilla species. Their genetic material could help create a better commercial crop.<\/p>\n

There are four species of vanilla orchid native to Florida, all of them endangered by habitat destruction and illegal collection.<\/p>\n

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Vanilla phaentha, one of four species of vanilla native to Florida.<\/div>\n
Premnath Subrahmanyam <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cA single major hurricane event could literally wipe out a significant portion of the existing population, if not all of it,\u201d Chambers said.<\/p>\n

Photographer and orchid enthusiast Premnath Subrahmanyam is the founder of the educational website flnativeorchids.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Subrahmanyam has photographed three of the native species of vanilla in their natural habitats, and the fourth, Vanilla dilloniana<\/i>, in a private collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first vanilla species was actually an incidental encounter on an excursion to chronicle ghost orchids in the Fakahatchee Strand,\u201d Subrahmanyam said.<\/p>\n

For Subrahmanyam, the thrill of seeking out native orchids has become a lifelong passion.<\/p>\n

His treks to document them on film require geo-coordinates provided by trusting naturalists, a good GPS system and some grit.<\/p>\n

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Vanilla mexicana, one of four species of vanilla native to Florida.<\/div>\n
Premnath Subrahmanyam <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

For some time,Vanilla mexicana<\/i> was presumed extinct in the wild. When a population was rediscovered, Subrahmanyam sought it out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe baygall swamps where these grow are hot and sticky, with unforgiving, shin-deep mud that one must traverse to see these plants in the wild,\u201d Subrahmanyam said.<\/p>\n

The native vanillas\u2019 ability to survive in Florida\u2019s sometimes extreme conditions might be useful.<\/p>\n

Chambers says the native species do not have commercial potential as they are, but he is interested in their genetics.<\/p>\n

By combining the best genes from native and non-native varieties, Chambers and colleague Elias Bassil will attempt to create new and superior varieties of vanilla.<\/p>\n

Chambers describes the process as \u201cgoing from wild material, which is pretty much what we have now, to something more domesticated\u2014including higher yields, less disease, better taste and improved production qualities.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Pictured: Alan Chambers at the Tropical Research and Education Center (TREC) in Homestead, Florida, in October 2017.<\/div>\n
Courtesy of Alan Chambers <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Blueberries and strawberries went through a similar cultivation process in Florida. It is just a matter of investing the time and resources in vanilla. Thanks to modern technology, vanilla\u2019s journey will be much quicker. Chambers says it is a five to 20 year prospect.<\/p>\n

Then there is the taste factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is so much flavor chemistry work still to be done, especially for new hybrids,\u201d Chambers said. \u201cI have a very heavy focus on fruit quality for each of my tropical species, but vanilla is an especially fun one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The end result could be delicious new varieties of vanilla with their own distinct flavor profiles.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsidering we\u2019ve had vanilla for hundreds of years, if they would have done this a hundred years ago we\u2019d already have amazing kinds of vanilla. So someone\u2019s got to start,\u201d Chambers said.<\/p>\n

There is another reason Chambers has hope for vanilla in Florida. It is already being grown commercially somewhere with a relatively similar climate.<\/p>\n

The Vanillerie is a small vanilla farm on the west side of Hawaii\u2019s Big Island.<\/p>\n

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Vanilla products like extract, sopas and lotions are available for visitors to purchase in The Vanillerie’s shop.<\/div>\n
The Vanillerie <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Vanillerie<\/b><\/h3>\n

The Vanillerie is a prime example of agritourism, or the idea of bringing visitors onto a farm to see firsthand how a crop is produced.<\/p>\n

Guy Cellier co-owns The Vanillerie with business partner JR Pataray. The pair started out in the tree industry converting sugar cane lands into timber plantations. That was in 1996.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were done about 10 years later,\u201d Cellier said. \u201cSomebody suggested that we should try something that was a lot smaller and more valuable than timber trees, which are big and awkward. We got some materials, some vanilla vine from a man named Mr. Kadaoko. He had a vision for vanilla being the next agricultural crop on the big island. We played around with it for a couple of years and got it to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gradually, it became their new trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided that it could be a good agritourism crop for us given that Hawaii is a tourist destination,\u201d Cellier said.<\/p>\n

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A vanilla plant in bloom in the shade house at The Vanillerie.<\/div>\n
The Vanillerie <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Cellier and Pataray\u2019s six-acre farm is located just two miles from the main airport on the \u201ctourist side\u201d of the island.<\/p>\n

Travelers come by the busload to tour the shade houses and visit the gift shop. Fresh vanilla ice cream made with the farm\u2019s vanilla awaits at the end of the journey.<\/p>\n

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crocothemes.net<\/a><\/div>\n