Vanilla: the scent of success

A brown paper is pulled back to reveal a tight bundle of glistening, deep brown vanilla pods. Fred Ssango, managing director of the Kampala-based farmer advisory group Agribusiness Management Associates (AMA) evidently never tires of the delicious fragrance. "You can smell the aroma," he sniffs. "This is the high vanilla content the food industry requires." For the farmers of Kasese district in western Uganda it is the scent of success.

More than 85 per cent of the population in the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains depend on farming for a living. However, success in growing another export crop, Scotch bonnet chilli pepper, attracted outside support for this vanilla venture. Almost 4000 households, each with around one hundred vanilla plants on less than two acre plots are producing consistent, top-grade vanilla beans for export to Europe. Production is over 100 metric tonnes a year.

Partnership is key

This success is the result of an interesting partnership* between the chilli pepper buyer - the High Low supermarket in the Netherlands, CORDAID - a Dutch NGO, and the AMA advice team in Uganda, which began in 2004. Good organisation is key. For chilli pepper there was just one farmers' association but, when the chance came to plant vanilla, interest was so great amongst smallholders that seven new associations have been formed, representing more than 2,000 individual farmers and their families. Two full-time agronomists give support and advice by working with groups on farmer-owned demonstration plots, and through regular visits to individual farms. As members, farmers benefit from group discussion and reduced cost inputs, as the associations buy fertiliser and other goods in bulk and make them available on credit to members who have to make repayments from the proceeds of their harvested vanilla.

The establishment of the new crop was financed by a loan, not a grant, from the coalition of backers through a business model which has been of interest to many involved in the enhancement of smallholder incomes. The loan for planting material and tractors - totalling 200,000 Euros - is to be paid back by 2009. The committee members of each producer association have signed a contract to make the specified repayments and to supply vanilla of the required quality on time.

The vanilla vines, which are sourced from within Uganda in one metre lengths, are planted for support and shade with Jatropha euphorbia trees. They are intercropped with banana and coffee, which allows farmers to tend several crops at once and keep different streams of income. With two annual dry seasons, vanilla is harvested twice a year, in June/July and January/February, and delivered to the central grading and processing area for curing in the traditional way. "Currently AMA does the processing," explains Ssango. "But we employ representatives of all our vanilla communities. In that way they are learning the techniques and attention to detail required so that eventually they will be able to do it for themselves and get even better returns."

Finding the right market

The only blight on the Kasese farmers' success is the disappointing world market value of vanilla, currently as little as US$30 per kilo. At the outset of the project it was hoped that vanilla would be worth almost double. Nevertheless, progress towards quadrupling smallholder incomes from US$50 to US$200 a year is steady.

With the bundle of vanilla in his hand, Fred Ssango reflects on what has been achieved. "The farmers have done so well. The current low value of vanilla is tough for them. From our side, we are looking to help them with different marketing options." Kasese vanilla, which is sold under the brand name Vanilla Moon, is grown without the use of pesticides. Whilst all the associations have to look at the practices and procedures necessary to meet the EUREPGAP European retailer standards of good agricultural practice, two of the groups are looking at another option. Fred Ssango explains, "Organic certification may help to get a better price. It would be good to take all the associations through to organic certification but until we know the gains we cannot answer the question of whether it is worth investing to produce certified organic vanilla. I believe strongly that smallholders can produce high quality. But production skills are not the only thing. We have to put as much effort into finding the best markets as well."

*Kasese Smallholder Income and Investment Programme
For further information see www.vanillamoon.org