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Rajon Vanilla Farmers

How It Started

The vanilla farmers in Kasese and Bundibugyo were found to be living in extremely remote areas, with limited access to basic things like running water, electricity and poor telephone network.
“A good majority of the farmers lived in their gardens. Pushed by circumstances and a constant fear for their vanilla pods that were constantly being stolen in the dead of night while they rested from a hard day of work.”

Introducing the farmers to financial literacy

During a visit to the vanilla farmers, it was discovered that most of the farmers had limited knowledge in financial literacy and financial management. Transactions with vanilla buyers were largely cash based and the farmers did not have bank accounts in which to deposit the money from vanilla sales or through which large transactions could be conducted.

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“Farmers got paid large sums of money which was kept under their mattresses or in dug out holes in their plantations or compound. This was a highly unsecure way of keeping money. Most farmers also squandered the earnings from the sales on alcohol and women.”

It was also discovered that most of these farmers were selling their vanilla produce at extremely low prices, and on credit to middlemen. These middlemen took large amounts of Vanilla with a promise to pay at a later date after they’d found market for it. Often times, this was hardly the case as the farmers were extremely gullible and at a disadvantage when it came to attempting to track down these buyers.

Resolution

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The vanilla industry in Uganda has until recently been considered a low-volume niche crop. As a result, the public sector has not taken keen interest in improving or adding value to its processes, and few laws have been put in place to regulate the industry. Large and small industry actors operating in Uganda have in the past, taken advantage of a highly unregulated operating environment, and when prices spiked, got involved in purchasing unripe vanilla from cash-hungry farmers at extremely low market prices.
Many farmers, with the constant and ever present fear that their crop would be stolen if not sold immediately, accepted early and low prices in order to avoid major losses in the likelihood of theft before harvest. Unripe vanilla was then steam cured, further compromising vanillin content and the flavour complexity of the bean. Without good production and strict market practices aided by effective laws in place to regulate the vanilla trade in Uganda, this practice would have continued to go on undetected. The situation threatened both high-quality vanilla supply and the opportunity for a secure livelihood for small farmers in Uganda. The Association of Vanilla Exporters of Uganda (VANEX) was not playing an active role in regulating the trading practices, and some of its members were primary culprits in unripe vanilla trading.
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