Earlier quoted context omitted.
black lotus flowers would be a natural substitute.
Locust. Black Lotus is a Magic: The Gathering card. :-)
and about 1000x more expensive than an equivalent weight of vanilla
One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
61–70 of 179 posts
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#62Madagascar isn't the smallest island on Earth, you know.
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#63And it's even grown only in 2 very specific regions in the north of the island (where most of the cocoa production also come from). There's still huge opportunities if you have enough money and appetite for adventure to start a trading or setting up a plantation. 1ha yields on average 300-400 kg of dried vanilla, a process that takes on average 6-8 months from manual pollination to end of drying. Madagascar is quite…
A "vanilla startup" is perhaps one of the most interesting ideas I've read in HN comments these past few weeks. If I may ask, are you from Madagascar or an expat? This is all quite new information to me so I am fascinated to learn more. Are there any sources you would recommend?
Most wouldn't consider starting a farm or a ranch a "startup" in the usual sense. There are many people starting farms every year the US. Things are very different compared to a tech startup, with much higher capital costs (land, rent, equipment). There are special USDA loans available: https://newfarmers.usda.gov
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
A "vanilla startup" is perhaps one of the most interesting ideas I've read in HN comments these past few weeks. If I may ask, are you from Madagascar or an expat? This is all quite new information to me so I am fascinated to learn more. Are there any sources you would recommend?
OT, but why are immigrants called expats when they're from anglophone nations?
In my experience, people have come to use expat to describe someone who is temporarily or provisionally living elsewhere (e.g. Gone to London to work for a few years). Immigrant is often used for people who have moved with a permanent intention.
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#65So, I assume everyone else's first thought after reading this was: Let's build a vanilla flower pollination robot using deep learning to process RGB camera images and help guide the robot actuators. Startup, anyone? Edit: turns out this is, in fact, not a unique thought: "Implementation of Automated Vanilla Pollination Robotic Crane Prototype, 2017": https://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1109/SYSOSE.2017.79949... (No…
Because screw those poor farmers?
Meanwhile I could ask of you: why do you want to keep these people as extremely low-paid wage slaves, producing goods for the well to do, for something that can be automated? (I find it likely that automation would cause real vanilla to become so cheap that most people could enjoy it, not just the 10% richest.)
The big picture is complex and it's hard to do forecasts, but I'm not entirely convinced that this kind of change would screw these farmers in the long run.
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
A "vanilla startup" is perhaps one of the most interesting ideas I've read in HN comments these past few weeks. If I may ask, are you from Madagascar or an expat? This is all quite new information to me so I am fascinated to learn more. Are there any sources you would recommend?
OT, but why are immigrants called expats when they're from anglophone nations?
I've usually seen "expat" used when it's more relevant where the person came from than where they emmigrated to. "Immigrant" being used for the reverse.
E.g. If you were born in Madagascar and moved to Belgium: You're a Madagascan expat because we're talking about Madagascar, but you might be referred to as an immigrant to Belgium if we're talking about Belgium.
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
A "vanilla startup" is perhaps one of the most interesting ideas I've read in HN comments these past few weeks. If I may ask, are you from Madagascar or an expat? This is all quite new information to me so I am fascinated to learn more. Are there any sources you would recommend?
OT, but why are immigrants called expats when they're from anglophone nations?
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Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, that is insane. I wonder if there is some kind of opportunity here for automation and vertical farming to create economies of scale for the mass production of vanilla?
The big problem is the manual pollination and harvesting. Growing the vanilla can be done with a suitable climate in many tropical locales, but pollination requires a lot of care--you need to balance getting deep enough to actually pollinate the plant with being gentle enough to not destroy the plant. Most vanilla farmers have special tools they use to cut away parts of the flower and quickly pollinate it.
For pollination, a hummingbird-sized drone is not as far-fetched as it might sound.
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#69One island the size of France.
Wait. Really?
...
Stupid Mercator Projection.
Re: One Island Grows 80% of the World’s Vanilla
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
A "vanilla startup" is perhaps one of the most interesting ideas I've read in HN comments these past few weeks. If I may ask, are you from Madagascar or an expat? This is all quite new information to me so I am fascinated to learn more. Are there any sources you would recommend?
OT, but why are immigrants called expats when they're from anglophone nations?
The definition of expatriate (noun) is any person who lives outside their native country. It's a synonym of migrant. An immigrant is "someone from a foreign land", so the only difference appears to be the "settling" part (an expat/migrant has settled somewhere else, an immigrant is simply _from_ another country.)
This is based on the 1.5 minutes I just spent looking these up and is only based on definition (not usage).