BloombergBusinessweek December 23, 2019
tell.Zhuacknowledgessomemightbemorelegendthanfact,
buttheirpervasivenessmakesthemmeaningful.Herpointin
gatheringandrepeatingthetaleswasn’ttodismissthevanilla
farmersandcollectorsassimpletonsdazedbythesuddencol-
lisionofthemodernandthetraditional.Volamofanastories,
shesays,don’tdescribeanawkwardphaseofMadagascar’s
economicdevelopment;rather,theprofligacytheyrecount
canbeconsidereda “tacticalweapon”deployedbyresidents
againstthe“erratic,nonlineardevelopmentthatcharacter-
izesglobalizationtoday.”Bytreatingmoneysocavalierly—
eitherliterallyorfiguratively—thevanillafarmersdiminish
thepowerthemoderneconomicordercanexertuponthem.
Actionsthatseemtodefylogicactually“reflectandoften
resistthemagicalitiesinherentinmodernforms.”
A translation:Maybeit’snotthefarmersandcollectors
who’vegoneofftherailswhenconfrontingthemoderneco-
nomicsystem;maybewhat’scrazyis themodernsystem.
F
armersaresometimestoldthatif theyproducebetter
beans, the market will reward them with higher
prices. But that’s not how it works.
“The worst vanilla, by far, that I’ve ever seen in my
life was the stuff that sold for $650 a kilo,” says Josephine
Lochhead, president of Cook Flavoring Co., a family business
in California that’s been dealing in vanilla for more than a
century. “And the farmers think, Gee, I’ve worked on these
beans for six months, sleeping in the fields through rain,
babying them, and this year’s beans are much better than
last year’s beans—so shouldn’t I get more money for them
than for the terrible beans I grew last year?”
If a crop is projected to be weak and scraggly, buyers get
antsy, eager to secure whatever they can get, as soon as they
can. The farmers try to satisfy the demand, picking beans ear-
lier than they otherwise might, and the auction dates tend
to slide forward. Sometimes an early black market emerges,
with beans trading hands under the table before the official
markets commence. Prices drive upward, and the beans—
picked too soon, with less flavor than mature ones—often
turn out to be even worse than predicted. When the crop is
expected to be healthy, all of that is turned upside down. The
farmers feel less pressure to pick their beans early; they allow
thevanillatomatureonthefloweranddevelopa richerfla-
vor,andpricesgenerallytendtostaylower.It’swhatmarket
economistscalla “perverseincentive.”
Thewaymoneymoves,travelingfromtheaccountsof
billion-dollar corporations and into the hands of the farmers,
also follows a logic of its own. Madagascar’s largest currency
denomination is the 20,000-ariary note, worth a little more
than $5. It went into circulation in 2017, a year after vanillaA vanilla collector checks
fields in Tsarahitra