Comment by AKifer

And it's even grown only in 2 very specific regions in the north of the island (where most of the cocoa production also come from). There's still huge opportunities if you have enough money and appetite for adventure to start a trading or setting up a plantation. 1ha yields on average 300-400 kg of dried vanilla, a process that takes on average 6-8 months from manual pollination to end of drying. Madagascar is quite strict on land property though, and it's one of the hot topics on the political landscape right now, foreign investors most of the time work with trusted local proxy to set up the business. I myself plan to trip to the vanilla producing region in the following months to see how it works, would be so cool to run a vanilla startup. One more thing, vanilla extract and vanilla caviar are even more valuable than the dried vanilla, and still at the hands of very few businesses. P.S. I live in Madagascar