Blue
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2016
- Posts
- 3,097
Over the past few years prices of vanilla beans have surged, up nearly ten-fold, from $65 in 2016 to $600 (£442) per kilo of vanilla pods in 2018, making it the world's second most expensive spice (after saffron) and more expensive than silver for the same weight ($531.77). The price spike was due to Cyclone Enawo hitting Madagascar in 2017 and destroying about 20%-30% of Madagascar's vanilla orchid fields, at the time Madagascar produced about 80% of the worlds vanilla beans. Even with the damage to vanilla fields 2017 actually saw a net 100-ton increase in vanilla bean exports from Madagascar from 2016.
"But Blue, why are you posting about vanilla beans in the political forum?"
It's because this made me realize just how fragile our entire global civilization is. Just one cyclone hit one island somewhere in the world and it spiked the price of vanilla extract so much that it could be considered akin to a side of caviar at a fancy restaurant. The global supply of vanilla beans didn't even see a net annual decrease, it just decreased the growth in production a bit.
Now I'm going to tie in a news article I saw today about climate change: Trump White House axes Nasa research into greenhouse gas cuts
By 2100, the increase in global temperature even with all countries ratifying and acting according to their pledges in the Paris climate accord would be around about 3.3c, without the US fulfilling their pledge; 3.6c, the world continuing business as usual as we are now doing; 4.2c.
Now go read about climate change's estimated impact on agriculture in the future and you might get a tad worried. What I learnt from the vanilla bean crisis was that even though I was half-joking a few weeks ago when I said we might see food shortages in highly developed countries, but when our food is produced in less developed countries that are going to see big hits to their food output due to climate change, we might actually have food shortages, not due to lack of goods, but due to food not being cost-effective to import.
"But Blue, why are you posting about vanilla beans in the political forum?"
It's because this made me realize just how fragile our entire global civilization is. Just one cyclone hit one island somewhere in the world and it spiked the price of vanilla extract so much that it could be considered akin to a side of caviar at a fancy restaurant. The global supply of vanilla beans didn't even see a net annual decrease, it just decreased the growth in production a bit.
Now I'm going to tie in a news article I saw today about climate change: Trump White House axes Nasa research into greenhouse gas cuts
By 2100, the increase in global temperature even with all countries ratifying and acting according to their pledges in the Paris climate accord would be around about 3.3c, without the US fulfilling their pledge; 3.6c, the world continuing business as usual as we are now doing; 4.2c.
Now go read about climate change's estimated impact on agriculture in the future and you might get a tad worried. What I learnt from the vanilla bean crisis was that even though I was half-joking a few weeks ago when I said we might see food shortages in highly developed countries, but when our food is produced in less developed countries that are going to see big hits to their food output due to climate change, we might actually have food shortages, not due to lack of goods, but due to food not being cost-effective to import.
