Boise State News
March 9, 2021
Paige Ellestad and farmer Raul Manual in front of his vanilla vines in La Chinantla, Oaxaca, Mexico.
The Vulnerability of Vanilla
Vanilla is the world’s second most treasured spice, after saffron. In 2018, it was valued at $515 per kilogram, nearly the same price as silver. Yet where is this species of orchid (Vanilla planifolia) distributed across the world? Multiple hypotheses of vanilla in the Americas, stemming from a long and varied history of conquest, collection, and cultivation makes the true homeland and the current distribution of vanilla a fuzzy question mark.
“It was transported all over the world to be cultivated, but it was propagated clonally,” said Paige Ellestad, a doctoral student in the Ecology, Evolution and Behavior program. “So that means that almost all of the vanilla that’s grown in the world is just a clone from one source in Mexico.”