HIGH COSTS AND FLUCTUATIONS PRICES: MAJOR IMPEDIMENTS TO THE GROWTH OF VANILLA PRODUCTION IN MEXICO.
Juan Hernández Hernández
Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP)
Martínez de la Torre, Veracruz, México
This talk discusses the actual situation of production, grower organization, prices and commercialization of Mexican vanilla.
A typical feature of vanilla growers in Mexico is that personal investment in time and resources directly correlates with good prices for vanilla. When prices fall, growers decrease their own investments, to the extent of abandoning vanilla cultivation altogether, as is happening currently. This is the main factor that explains why the volume of Mexican vanilla production has been so low for the last 50 years. The interest to cultivate vanilla in Mexico among growers is strong, but the price factor and fluctuations in international demand are the prime determinants for the increase or decrease in Mexican vanilla production.
Growers of vanilla in Mexico have started to organize themselves in national and state associations in accordance with legal and judicial frameworks in order to obtain economic resources from the government for establishing their own curing facilities and organization (in which growers receive a better price by selling a value-added product), and in linking directly to external markets. In other words, growers have been trying to break the traditional commercialization scheme.
Bio: Juan Hernández Hernández is an agronomist and researcher at the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP), located at the Campo Experimental Ixtacuaco, municipio de Tlapacoyan, Veracruz Mexico. Since 1997, he has been involved in efforts to improve the process of production of the crop and to build capacity among growers and advisors. He has presented at international meetings of vanilla organized by Bakto Flavors; in Cannes, France (2004), Veracruz, Mexico (2005), and New Jersey, USA (2007). He served as a member of the organizing committee of the 2005 meeting in Mexico. In addition to Mexico, he has observed vanilla production in Costa Rica and French Polynesia.