The price of vanilla has touched Rs 4,500 a kg and is moving further ahead.
The price of green vanilla had been Rs 4,000 a kg in 2003-04. Last year, it had touched Rs 5,000 a kg.
The price of dry vanilla beans is hovering between Rs 14,000 and Rs 18,000 a kg, depending on quality. Last year, it had reached Rs 25,000 a kg.
Owing to lack of production, traders are importing dry, poor quality vanilla from Indonesia and Vietnam and are selling in the local market.
Called green gold, the vanilla crop had disappeared from plantations after it was hit by wilt disease. Once it was cultivated on a large scale in Malnad, but now, only a few farmers are engaged in cultivating vanilla.
Farmer Keremane Bharath said, “Last year, I could procure eight quintals of vanilla in and around Sringeri. This year, I may get half of it. The crop is being cultivated only in Kerekatte and Nemmar. The vanilla creepers fail to thrive in the place where it was infected with disease in the past.”
Bharath has planted vanilla in buckets on the terrace of the house using coir. Now, the creeper has slowly started to thrive, he said.
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