How ADM Supports Smallholder Vanilla Farmers

Almost 80% of the world's vanilla is sourced from Madagascar, where it's produced and collected from villages in a complex supply chain. Through SAVAN, our joint venture partnership with Sahanala, we are the industry's first farmer-owned processor and exporter of vanilla beans, rooting our supply chain at the origin source.

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Sahanala is a farmer-owned cooperative that has more than 4,000 vanilla farmers across 19 associations in Madagascar. The vertical supply chain eliminates unnecessary steps and stress from the vanilla typical supply chain, ensuring that farmers are directly engaged in the entire business model. Simplifying the collection ensures farmers receive more of the profits sales.

Our partnership with Sahanala doesn't begin and end with a sale. We also work together to implement industry-changing, farmer-focused social programs. ADM works with Sahanala to implement programs for reliable education, medical care and food security that help uplift the quality of life in a sustainable way for vanilla farmers. SAVAN bolsters an extension worker program that provides agronomy support and promotes farming best practices to help increase crop yields, improve vanillin content, and establish a more stable industry.

Each farmer association chooses how to allocate profits generated through the joint venture operations in ways that make the most immediate positive impact on their communities including community health offices, schools, and churches. To ensure food security, ADM Cares approved $70,000 to provide rice for Sahanala farmers in the off-season covering 17,000 people including 4,410 farmers and their families.

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