Question

Article from that website address （copy the address and open it for read）, and finish those questions after read article. Thanks

The Hidden Cost of Vanilla

Use the article at https://www.danwatch.dk/en/undersogelse/thehiddencostofvanilla/ to answer the following questions.

1. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) what is the standard of living in Madagascar (what does the majority of the population live on per day?)

2. Who are the parties involved in producing and distributing vanilla from Madagascar?

3. Who has the most control over price? Why?

4. Why do farmers have no influence on pricing?

5. What type of market structure are vanilla farmers operating in? List some of the characteristics of this type of market structure.

6. What was the international price of vanilla in 2003-2004? In 2008-2010? In 2016?

7. Why does the price of vanilla fluctuate so much?

8. Why are children employed in vanilla farming, even though it is illegal for children under the age of 15 to work?

9. What are the “vanilla flower contracts” referred to in the article?

10. Why is the rampant theft of vanilla not addressed?

11. What steps are being taken to change the lives of vanilla farmers?

12. What else would you suggest to improve the situation?

Answer 1

1. According to the United Nations Development Program, a total of 93 percent of Madagascar's working population is available under two dollars (approximately DKK 13) a day.

2. According to the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO), 80 percent of the world's vanilla originates from vanilla importers from Madagascar, and 80 percent of Madagascar's vanilla is produced in the Sava region. about 80 percent of Madagascar's vanilla is produced in the country's Sava region in northeastern Madagascar, where about 80,000 small farmers grow vanilla .six companies selling vanilla products in Danish supermarkets and three grocery chains selling vanilla under their six own brands about their policy of purchasing vanilla from Madagascar .Dagrofa, who owns the grocery chains Menu, Kiwi, Spar, My Merchant and Light-Buy, sells vanilla under their own brand "First Price".

3. Intermediares, traders and companies decided prices of vanilla but not prepared any price policies because farmers have always covered with debt due to slack month of farming.

4. Lack of education and poverty and stolen of vanilla flowers and seeds farmers always beared loan with traders so they use their crops for the repayment of loan, not praticipatd propely in market structure thats why they dont have any control or role in market price policies.

5. It is difficult to map the individual vanilla bar's journey from the vanilla farm in Madagascar to the supermarket's shelf. manufacturers of vanilla sugar or vanilla bars outside of Madagascar also do not know the concrete vanilla farm they buy their vanilla from. However, it is still possible to draw a more general picture of the many joints in the product chain:

From small family owned vanilla farms in Madagascar, green vanilla beans are resold to so-called collectors who either resell the vanilla to other intermediaries who process the vanilla or directly to exporters located in Madagascar. From here, the vanilla is transported by ship to importers around the world, which again resells the vanilla to various manufacturers of vanilla products. These producers pack the vanilla and distribute vanilla sugar or rods to the supermarkets.

6. The market has even seen higher prices. Vanilla beans went over $500 per kilogram in 2004, Vanilla beans sold for about $20 a kilogram from 2008-10,   vanilla beans selling for more than $200 a kilogram in 2016,

7. vanilla is 2nd most expensive spices of world . For their cultivation it takes 4-5 years . As we know price and demand have inverse relation but price - supply - quality have direct relation. lack of appropriate facilities if the quality of goods are not so immense then their prices are fall.

8. Due to low wages rate of vanilla farmers, debt and proverty . Lack of resources small and marginal farmers sold their vanilla to intermediares; means low return of cost . all these are causes of child labour

9. Vanilla Flower contracts means when the vanilla growers have no money and the profit from the summer's vanilla sales is gone, there is often only one way the farmers can survive. They borrow money from the vanilla dealers in the expected vanilla harvest in July. But if the harvest fails, or if the vanilla is stolen from the fields, farmers can not pay back the loan - neither in vanilla nor cash. It is particularly bad if vanilla prices have risen, as is the case this year - for the loan rises accordingly.

It's the worst thing that can happen to a farmer,who is vanilla-bound in northern Madagascar, and says that often when farmers have repayed the loan, they are promptly required to raise a new loan. In this way the peasants end up in a spiral of bottomless debt.

10. Major problem is thefting of vanilla is a major causes of farmers debts. In order to reduce the problems of theft, farmers has to sleep in the field among the vanilla orchids. Vanilla theft is so widespread that an exporter whose vanilla ends in Denmark says that exporters can not know if the vanilla they resell is stolen as intermediaries mix the thieves and ordinary vanilla together. The individual vanilla bars are not labeled and, according to the exporter, importers in Europe can not know if they receive stolen vanilla. companies have a responsibility to ensure that the goods they buy and resell are not stolen. If the goods prove to be stolen, you can compare it with heels.

11. steps are being taken to change the lives of vanilla farmers are: A. Increases per day wages of farmers . B. Focused on cooperative farming C. Strictly followed and mointored child labour policies. D. Strict policies for stolen vanilla. E.Improved labour act and emeged formal structer in vanilla farming   F. Created all weather road.

12. In vanilla farming farmers not get basic facilities of farming like : lack of security in vanilla farming, credit availabilty, all weather road , lack of coperative farming . lack of all these facilities farmers are not sold their vanilla in direct to market, either they sold their crops to intermediares either their crops are stolen. As a result in both cases darmers faces losses. Low wages rate and child labour both negativelty affected farmers socio- economic conditions. Goverment, NGO and SHG's have to come together and re-engineering the process of cultivation.