A slightly more up-beat version: A single county in Pennsylvania grows 50% of the mushrooms in the United States. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/this-small-pennsylvania-...
This is really interesting, thanks for sharing.
One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
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Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#12I wonder why they can’t import the necessary bees and eliminate most of the manual labor from the process?
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#13I wonder why they can’t import the necessary bees and eliminate most of the manual labor from the process?
Yes, let's import an alien species in a closed ecosystem. What could go wrong?
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#14I wonder why they can’t import the necessary bees and eliminate most of the manual labor from the process?
Yes, let's import an alien species in a closed ecosystem. What could go wrong?
Granted, I guess I should have asked in the past tense? Why didn’t they? And why don’t local bees work in pollinating the vanilla vines?
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#15Keep in mind that 5/6ths of the vanillin used for flavoring is synthetic.
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#16There are tons of plants that have the same flavor profile as vanilla, just not ones that retain their flavor when dried for years on end. But if you're just making ice cream, you could just as easily use black locust flowers or whatever and no one would know the difference.
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#17The silver:vanilla ratio really drove home that it's not just "location, location, location" but the rise in global population and global incomes drives the value of 'location'.
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#18One island contains 100% of the world’s Mongolians — Eurasia.
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#19One island contains 100% of the world’s Mongolians — Eurasia.
I’m sure there are Mongolians living in the United States and elsewhere.
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#20I wonder why they can’t import the necessary bees and eliminate most of the manual labor from the process?
An interesting challenge: build a small tree/pole-climbing robot that would methodically pollinate all flowers (manipulators, image recognition).