About Madagascar

Why Madagascar Vanilla Beans?

For starters, Madagascar has very fertile (but extremely limited in size - the northeast Sava region is where the vanilla bean orchids are grown) ground thanks to the thousands of years of volcanic ash enriching the soil.  Hawaii has had the same effect on the abundance and quality of pineapples thanks to the volcanic ash, but as an island, Madagascar and its people and economic climate are very different than Hawaii. Surprisingly, vanilla beans were never native to this region until the orchids were smuggled in from Mexico in 1793.  The vanilla planifolia was the orchid that the Europeans brought first to Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.  Guess what Reunion Island was called before it was called Reunion? Bourbon! (During the 17th century, the French took possession of the island, and named it the Isle Bourbon, after the House of Bourbon which then ruled France). Thus the reason the Madagascar Vanilla beans are referred to as Bourbon (not to be confused with the spirit). For fifty years Reunion and Madagascar only seldom produced vanilla pods as pollination was still a mystery to them.  That is until a young enslaved boy by the name of Edmond Albius figured out how to hand pollinate the orchids.  Can you believe he was only twelve years old? In 1841 Edmond learned how to manually pollinate vanilla orchids, which would revolutionize the vanilla business. It begs the question however, where were the bees?

How did he do it? Edmond used a twig to bring the female and male parts of the planifolia together, a process now called "le geste d'edmond", or "Edmond's Gesture". Sound familiar? Unfortunately, and regretfully, Edmond never received any compensation or recognition for it as an enslaved person and in 1880 at the age of 71 died broke....and forgotten. Until now!! Thank you Edmond for your contribution to society and to the Vanilla business, which in 2023 was a $27.66 billion business.  The vanilla business is expected to reach a staggering value of 40,51 billion by 2030.  Turtles Bakeree is proud to be able to contribute to Madagascar's growth in a very small way. So why Madagascar?

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Madagascar is one of the poorest countries with a poverty level in 2023 of 80%! The average daily income in 2023 was $2.15 per person. Less than half of the population has running water and electricity. Over one million of the 30 million people on the island suffer from malnutrition. Twelve million people face hunger on the island. It also has one of the world's lowest child survival rates and is susceptible to natural disasters and extreme weather conditions.  The extreme heat waves are excellent for drying out the vanilla pods once harvested, but it wreaks havoc on the population and has a tendency to cause malaria and other awful illnesses.  One bad cyclone can devastate the cash crop that the locals depend on so to say that their island is fragile would be an understatement. Agriculture drives the majority of the employment on the island (70%), but unfortunately only represents 37% of exports and 29% of GDP. Turtles Bakeree wants to do our part to support the local farmers who depend on businesses like ours to sustain themselves.

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Despite this, Madagascar represents 80% of the world's vanilla bean production, and their beans are known worldwide for being the most flavorful. These small, local farmers that are dependent upon their crops to feed their families unfortunately have more than cyclones and other extreme weather events to worry about.  There is violence against the farmers and their families and theft of their crops that hit the booming black market so they stand watch vigilantly, some of them armed, to protect their families livelihood and those that work for them.  It is a real problem!

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Thanks to Edmond Albius, Madagascar farmers have perfected the craft of hand pollination.  Add in ideal weather and soil conditions and the finished bean has a higher concentrations of vanillin than other competing countries like Mexico. This is why Madagascar is the island of choice for vanilla bean connoisseurs and for Turtles Bakeree. 

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You can support Madagascar by supporting any one of these organizations: World Food Programme (WFP) (https://www.wfp.org/countries/madagascar) for emergency food aid, and nutrition programs. Action Against Hunger  ( https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/location/africa/madagascar) for combatting malnutrition and food insecurity, CARE ( https://www.care-international.org/our-work/where-we-work/madagascar) for women's empowerment and community resilience, Rainforest Trust (https://www.rainforesttrust.org/urgent-projects/saving-the-lost-forest-of-madagascar)  for conservation efforts to protect Madagascar's unique biodiversity. WaterAid (  https://www.wateraid.org/uk/where-we-work/madagascar) for access to clean water and sanitation, and Caritas Madagascar (https://www.caritas.org/where-caritas-work/africa/madagascar/) for comprehensive humanitarian aid and development across various sectors.

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Your small donation can make a huge difference on an island and its people that are used to making two dollars a day.  Thank you!​​​​

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