Title: Vanilla culture in Puerto Rico
Identifier: CAT31289489 (find matches)
Year: 1948 (1940s)
Authors: Childers, Norman Franklin, 1910-
Subjects: Vanilla; Orchids
Publisher: Washington, D. C. : U. S. Dept. of Agriculture
Contributing Library: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library
Digitizing Sponsor: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library

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Figure 1.—A vanilla curing and packing plant was erected at Castaner in 1938 as a part of the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration Program. It is the center of activity of most of the Puerto Rican vanilla growers who send their . beans from a radius of about 75 miles for uniform curing and packing. tive of Puerto Rico), leased the curing plant from the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration for a 10-year period. A buying option clause was inserted in case purchase of the curing plant by the grower's organization seemed desirable and possible. MARKET SITUATION General.—The large vanilla crop from Madagascar more or less governs the world price from year to 3^ear. Most other countries, in- cluding Mexico, tend to follow the world price and market situation rather than create them. In 19M, before World War I, vanilla was used primarily in the baking trade, but the war brought about a drastic increase in price of vanilla as shown in figure 2. This increase in price was due to general wartime price advances and to reduced sup- plies from distant sources. Artificial vanilla, or "vanillin," was sub- stituted for real vanilla in the baking trade and this was a heavy blow to the pure vanilla industry. Since that time, however, the ice cream industry has expanded considerably until the production of vanilla ice cream reached an annual figure of around 333,000,000 gallons in 1945. About half of the vanilla ice cream is flavored with true vanilla and the rest with vanillin.5 The dairy industry through 5 R. B. Stoltz, Chairman, Department of Dairy Technology, Ohio State Univer- sity, Columbus, Ohio. 1946.

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