Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Madagascar as they recover from the Tropical Cyclone Enawo that hit the island in early March. It was a very powerful storm, and the due to the remote nature of the areas hardest hit an accurate assessment of the impact is difficult.
The storm hit directly in the country’s primary vanilla-producing region, and this has created wild speculation on the future price of vanilla which has been rising over the last year. The immediate impact has been the increasing prices of vanilla in the global market, in part because of concerns that the beans salvaged from the storm will be brought prematurely to market.
For Natural Extracts Industries, Ltd. and the farmers in our network, there has been an impact as well. The farmers have been inundated with requests to purchase vanilla pods, and this drives up the cost of our raw vanilla as well.
We would like to assure all our customers that we will continue to source, process and cure only the highest quality of vanilla to maintain the integrity of our products. Until we can assess the long-term impact of the situation, we will continue to supply the customers who have been supporting our mission and our farmers.
Please take a moment to read further these reports about the storm, and its impact on Madagascar.
Featured photo: Tropical Cyclone “Enawo“ on March 3, 2017. Credit: NASA/NOAA/DoD Suomi NPP/VIIRS
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