The maiden voyage of Frontier’s Well Earth program took three members of our staff around the world to the outskirts of Bangalore, one of India’s largest cities. Our delegation met with small farmers fighting back against urban sprawl, huge commercial farms and desperate economic situations with sustainable, biodynamic farming and high quality organic products.
Our goal was to develop a new source of high quality vanilla extract. We helped the group find processing expertise and provided quality testing and information through our own Quality Assurance department. In keeping with Well Earth goals, our efforts will simultaneously provide a source for a top quality organic product and support social values.
These farmers, while not technically a co-op, work together to share information and resources in a way that is in keeping with co-op principles and practices. They pay more than three times the average rate for sorting vanilla beans, and the workers are treated respectfully. The workforce is predominantly female—which is almost unheard of in India. They practice ethical harvesting and biodynamic agriculture—their farms are not only sustainable, but are also self-contained, producing all needed resources through a careful balancing of activities. The farmers are also part of a larger, non-profit charity that feeds 100,000 kids a day throughout India.
Our staff met personally with many of the farmers living and working on their farms of 1 to 2 hectares (2.5 to 5 acres). The farmers are enthusiastic about the opportunities we’re offering, not only because of the financial benefits, but also because the program supports the traditional values of small, sustainable farms maintained by families.
We met Sripathi Ramai Hedge when we went to India to talk with the small vanilla farmers who produce Indian Select Vanilla. Sripathi has been a farmer all his life, raising betel nuts on his less-than-an-acre farm since his youth. He told us how for most of his life he had sadly watched the slow erosion of the land and decline of the small farms in the area.
Three years ago he learned about biodynamic farming and decided to give it a try. Sripathi insisted we see his fields, and we hurried to get to them before it got dark. He was proud of his healthy, lush vanilla vines intertwined with the betel nut trees. He took us to a bank cut away to expose the layers of dirt and showed us how the biodynamic materials were working their way down through the layers to energize the soil and nurture his vanilla.
Sripathi told us he was teaching his sons about this new method and would only turn over the land to them after they had the commitment and knowledge to keep the practice going. Sripathi and other farmers like him produce Indian Select Vanilla. Frontier is providing this group of farmers with fair prices and the support they need to produce and sell top quality organic products so there will be more farmers like Sripathi.
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