Since October 2015 when the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (Kalro) launched programmes to increase vanilla seedlings through tissue culture technology to address the scarcity of the crop’s planting materials, farmers in the country are yet to take the lucrative venture.
In fact, there are many vanilla processors and dealers in Kenya such as Noble Cause Enterprises in Nakuru, Signature Spice, Katco Ltd in Nairobi, Dahiraan Enterprises Ltd and Risola Foods which are closing up business or shifting to other lines due to low supply of the crop by the Kenyan growers.
“For over 16 years, we have been processing vanilla sourced from our local famers but the supply has not been impressive forcing us to import from Uganda but this too has not been economically viable resulting to the company changing its line of business to honey processing,” said Vincent Labatt, Entrepreneur and Owner of Noble Cause Enterprises.
Labatt says that the few farmers available in Kenya are scattered and produce in small quantities while other potential growers are reluctant to grow the crop unawares of its economic potential.
But how lucrative is vanilla farming for Kenyan farmers given the crop can do well in several parts of the country with hot and humid weather conditions such as in the Coast, lake regions and parts of western Kenya?
Just one tree of vanilla can bear up to 80 beans. Only one vanilla bean measuring 10-12cm long sells at Sh200 and because an acre can accommodate over 200 trees, a farmer can be sure of raking Sh3.2m within three years maturity period which depends on the size of the original cutting used for planting.
Luckily enough for growers is that vanilla can be raised either as a monocrop or intercrop with plants such as bananas to provide its tendrils with some shade at the initial stages. It is usually trained on trellis or on low branching, rough barked trees.
According to Shabbir Burbar, director of Maimun Ingredients, a Mombasa based dealer in food flavours, food colour, food-grade ingredients and additives for manufacture of food and drink products, vanilla is a money minter crop given its wide application in food and ointment industries.
“Our farmers may be looking at the period vanilla takes to mature and its labour intensiveness and become discouraged only to miss the fact that all this pays out,” said Burbar.
Of course, you must have had vanilla flavours in a wide variety of products such as foods products, drinks, soaps, ointments, perfumes and incenses among others indicating how ready its market can be.
In baking and dairy sector, or instance, vanilla can be used in making products such as yoghurt, and ice creams, and in desserts, chocolates, cookies, pancakes and soft cheese.
Some major potential export markets for vanilla beans include European countries and the United States though the demand depends on the quality.
For Burbar, he has been importing vanilla from Madagascar which he says produces the best vanilla in the continent while other possible sources of the crop include Comoros and Uganda.
Currently, vanilla global prices are on the rise due to high demand. An article by Financial Times indicates that vanilla pods have been trading at an All Time High price of $600 (about Sh60,000) per Kilogram.
As of June 2019, a kilo of vanilla beans still costs more than a kilo of silver at source. The price of black whole-bean Madagascar vanilla, the benchmark product, costs $520 (about Sh55,200) per kilo, according to a report by Reuters.
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