If the price of your vanilla ice cream spikes sometime soon, it's likely because a deadly fungus has spread to the majority of vanilla plantations in Madagascar, the world's largest vanilla producer.

The pods bring in hundreds of millions of dollars each year to the impoverished country. It's such a valuable enterprise, in fact, that some farmers brand their beans individually to mark ownership. Most of Madagascar's vanilla is exported to the U.S., where it's used in ice cream, soft drinks and other confectionaries.

Over the years, vanilla prices have followed a "boom-and-bust cycle," according to researchers, who also say "a spike in vanilla prices ten years ago encouraged poor planting practices, which have contributed to the spread of the fungus between plants." Usually vanilla plantations are "meticulously managed" and grown in the shade of trees in the warm forests of northeastern Madagascar. But unregulated plantings led to poor irrigation and vanilla plants being placed too close together, making it easy for the fungus to spread underground.

Planting new varieties will not be a quick fix. Even if a cure for the disease existed, like a fungus-resistant variety, vanilla plants have a long lifecycle, taking a minimum of five years before a vanilla orchid (these are beautiful, by the way) produces beans ready for extract. Instead, vanilla plantations will have to be managed differently, hopefully ecologically, so that disease patterns can be disrupted through means other than toxic fungicides.

Source: Mongabay.com, Associated Press

Comments (9)

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Good thing for Artifical Vanillin
written by Mark, December 09, 2008

As someone who likes to bake, I was very excited to learn that artificial vanilla extract is chemically identical to natural vanilla extract. The flavor - vanillin - can be made as a by-product from making wood pulp or from petrochemicals.

So don't worry - Vanilla ice cream should be safe.

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written by Clinch, December 11, 2008

It's not as though there aren't atleat 50 other icecream flaveors if there isn't vanila.
If chocolate flavor was in danger, not THAT would be a problem.

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written by Juan J. San Mames, December 12, 2008

I also understand synthetic vanillin can be made from cow's dung as a baker the extra fiber should excite you even more. How about adding a bit of healthy petrochemical melalime protein? Boy I am glad you are not my dad. I hope you are not by local baker.
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