美国国家公共电台 NPR Our Love Of 'All Natural' Is Causing A Vanilla Shortage

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

OK, this is big news, big news, if you eat ice cream. There is a global shortage of natural vanilla¹. Prices for vanilla beans are sky-high. NPR's Dan Charles reports.

DAN CHARLES, BYLINE²: Gerry Newman buys vanilla by the gallon.

GERRY NEWMAN: My wife and I own Albemarle Baking Company in Charlottesville, Va.

CHARLES: In the bakery this morning, people are rushing here and there.

NEWMAN: Over here, we're mixing a bunch of cookies for the next couple days.

CHARLES: There are pies, cakes, and all of them need vanilla. Just a few years ago, a one-gallon bottle of organic fair trade vanilla cost Newman $64 but since then...

NEWMAN: Price of a bottle went from 64 to 82 to 245.

CHARLES: That's where it is right now. Some bakers³ and ice cream makers⁴ have been forced to change recipes to use less of the stuff. Newman has switched to a cheaper supplier.

NEWMAN: It's not certified⁵ organic. It's not fair trade. So, you know, there's a guilt⁶ that I have over that - right? - because, you know, we're talking about something that's all hand labor⁷.

CHARLES: This is the first thing you should know to understand the current vanilla crisis. This is one of the most labor-intensive foods on earth. Vanilla beans are the seeds of an orchid⁸. And most of them these days are grown in Madagascar. Jurg Brand runs a small vanilla business there called Premium⁹ Spices. I talked to him by Skype.

JURG BRAND: Every flower of this orchid has to be fertilized¹⁰ by hand with a little stick.

CHARLES: And that's just the start of it. After you harvest the seed pods, you soak each one in hot water.

BRAND: Then you have to wrap it in wool blankets for about 48 hours and put it in a wooden box to sweat.

CHARLES: The whole process takes so much work that five or 10 years ago, farmers were giving up. Prices for vanilla were so low, it just wasn't worth the effort.

BRAND: And so a lot of farmers abandoned their plantations¹² during this time.

CHARLES: Prices were so low back then partly because a lot of food companies were using a synthetic¹³ version of vanilla. This is a single chemical compound, vanillin It's the main flavor compound in natural vanilla. The factory-made vanilla is a lot cheaper. It shows up in the ingredient list of packaged cookies or ice cream as vanillin or just artificial flavors.

But then the vanilla market flipped¹⁴. Food companies noticed that artificial flavors are out of fashion. Here's Craig Nielsen, co-owner of the company Nielsen-Massey, which makes natural vanilla.

CRAIG NIELSEN: Consumers are reading the labels much more and they're demanding more all-natural and organic, even.

CHARLES: In 2014 and 2015, several huge companies, including Nestle and Hershey's, announced they were shifting to natural ingredients. They now want vanilla from beans, not factories. The problem is there aren't enough beans.

NIELSEN: We don't have the supply to meet the demand right now.

CHARLES: So these companies are fighting over scarce beans, bidding up the price. A bag of those beans now costs 10 times what it did five years ago. It's putting the squeeze on vanilla lovers. For farmers in the coastal¹⁵ towns of Madagascar, though, times are great. Here's vanilla trader Jurg Brand.

BRAND: There's really, really a lot of cash around in these coastal towns and places now.

CHARLES: So much so, a really strange thing happened last harvest season.

BRAND: The national central bank ran out of cash.

CHARLES: The farmers get paid in large bills, Brand says. And they were hoarding¹⁶ the cash at home because they don't trust banks.

BRAND: All the money was somewhere in this coastal strip under mattresses¹⁷ or in houses locked in or I don't know where.

CHARLES: Brand expects the craziness to end eventually. Farmers in Madagascar are now planting more orchids¹⁸ again.

BRAND: It takes nevertheless four to five years until a new vanilla plantation¹¹ starts producing.

CHARLES: And this past March, there was a big setback¹⁹. A cyclone²⁰ hit Madagascar, destroying perhaps a third of the crop, pushing prices up even more. Farmers are so worried about thieves stealing those precious vanilla pods right out of the fields, they're now harvesting the beans too early. Which means right now, vanilla beans aren't just scarce and expensive, the quality is really poor, too. Dan Charles, NPR News.

1 vanilla   

n.香子兰，香草

参考例句：

• He used to love milk flavoured with vanilla.他过去常爱喝带香草味的牛奶。
• I added a dollop of vanilla ice-cream to the pie.我在馅饼里加了一块香草冰激凌。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 bakers   

n.面包师( baker的名词复数 )；面包店；面包店店主；十三

参考例句：

• The Bakers have invited us out for a meal tonight. 贝克一家今晚请我们到外面去吃饭。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The bakers specialize in catering for large parties. 那些面包师专门负责为大型宴会提供食品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 certified   

a.经证明合格的；具有证明文件的

参考例句：

• Doctors certified him as insane. 医生证明他精神失常。
• The planes were certified airworthy. 飞机被证明适于航行。

6 guilt   

n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责

参考例句：

• She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
• Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。

7 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

8 orchid   

n.兰花，淡紫色

参考例句：

• The orchid is a class of plant which I have never tried to grow.兰花这类植物我从来没种过。
• There are over 35 000 species of orchid distributed throughout the world.有35,000多种兰花分布在世界各地。

9 premium   

n.加付款；赠品；adj.高级的；售价高的

参考例句：

• You have to pay a premium for express delivery.寄快递你得付额外费用。
• Fresh water was at a premium after the reservoir was contaminated.在水库被污染之后，清水便因稀而贵了。

10 Fertilized   

v.施肥( fertilize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The study of psychology has recently been widely cross-fertilized by new discoveries in genetics. 心理学研究最近从遗传学的新发现中受益匪浅。
• Flowers are often fertilized by bees as they gather nectar. 花常在蜜蜂采蜜时受粉。

11 plantation   

n.种植园，大农场

参考例句：

• His father-in-law is a plantation manager.他岳父是个种植园经营者。
• The plantation owner has possessed himself of a vast piece of land.这个种植园主把大片土地占为己有。

12 plantations   

n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Soon great plantations, supported by slave labor, made some families very wealthy. 不久之后出现了依靠奴隶劳动的大庄园，使一些家庭成了富豪。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• Winterborne's contract was completed, and the plantations were deserted. 维恩特波恩的合同完成后，那片林地变得荒废了。 来自辞典例句

13 synthetic   

adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品

参考例句：

• We felt the salesman's synthetic friendliness.我们感觉到那位销售员的虚情假意。
• It's a synthetic diamond.这是人造钻石。

14 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

15 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

16 hoarding   

n.贮藏；积蓄；临时围墙；囤积v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• After the war, they were shot for hoarding. 战后他们因囤积而被枪决。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Actually he had two unused ones which he was hoarding up. 其实他还藏了两片没有用呢。 来自英汉文学

17 mattresses   

褥垫，床垫( mattress的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The straw mattresses are airing there. 草垫子正在那里晾着。
• The researchers tested more than 20 mattresses of various materials. 研究人员试验了二十多个不同材料的床垫。

18 orchids   

n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Wild flowers such as orchids and primroses are becoming rare. 兰花和报春花这类野花越来越稀少了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She breeds orchids in her greenhouse. 她在温室里培育兰花。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 setback   

n.退步，挫折，挫败

参考例句：

• Since that time there has never been any setback in his career.从那时起他在事业上一直没有遇到周折。
• She views every minor setback as a disaster.她把每个较小的挫折都看成重大灾难。

20 cyclone   

n.旋风，龙卷风

参考例句：

• An exceptionally violent cyclone hit the town last night.昨晚异常猛烈的旋风吹袭了那个小镇。
• The cyclone brought misery to thousands of people.旋风给成千上万的人带来苦难。