On March 27th 2019, SVI members and their Madagascar partners had their very first round table meeting at Ocean Momo, in Antalaha. The meeting gathered 51 participants and was an opportunity to further build their partnership and discuss joint strategy and activities in 2019 to grow the market of natural vanilla in the longer term. The meeting focused on improving quality by promoting professionalization, traceability, and sustainable production and addressing reputational risks, such as child labor.
During the meeting, participants celebrated the successes in 2018 that contributed to deterring early picking and buying, while acknowledging the remaining challenges, including: collective action and respect of campaign dates based on bean maturity; No pre-financing from importers before the opening dates; and supporting securitization efforts.
Based on the discussion, a small group of exporters and importers met with Ms. Lantosoa Rakotomalala, the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Handicrafts, to advocate for campaign dates based on the technical observation of vanilla flowering, appropriate licensing measures for Exporters, and vanilla regulation clarification.
At the end of day, the meeting was evaluated as a good start to developing an aligned agenda.