Promoting Sustainable Farming and Rediscovering Nevis Vanilla

Nevis, a beautiful and fertile island located in the Eastern Caribbean, hosted the Agri-Expo 2023 event on March 30-31st. The Agri-Expo is a unique opportunity to showcase the best agricultural practices, products, and innovations from Nevis and beyond. It is also a chance for new agri ventures, like ours, to connect with the local community and to promote sustainable and organic farming.

Our Organic and Sustainable Vanilla Farm

We were excited to be part of the Agri-Expo 2023 event and to present our farm to the visitors to our stand who discovered that we use only natural and eco-friendly methods to cultivate our land, and we believe in the importance of preserving the environment for future generations.  We showed our visitors the beautiful lime green vanilla flowers, the vanilla pods and some very delicious uses for the extract – vanilla cupcakes (they proved very popular!) as well as vanilla infused sugar, vanilla tea and coffee as well as sampling the mythic perfume, "Shalimar" by Guerlain, created in 1921 and which notes of real vanilla.

Rediscovering Nevis Vanilla

Agri-Expo was the opportunity for us to tell the local community the story of vanilla and speculate together how vanilla came to Nevis.  Was it brought by the Spanish Conquistadors sailing back from Mexico where they discovered it in 1519?

We explained the delicate hand-pollinating technique which is the only way for us to obtain the fruit, the vanilla pod. It was wonderful to see the surprised expressions on people's faces when they discovered that vanilla can indeed be grown on Nevis! As one visitor said, "I can't believe that you have to hand pollinate [vanilla plants] and it takes 9 months, like a baby, before you can harvest them!"

We are proud to say that we are the first to grow vanilla on a large scale in Nevis and  our aim is to put Nevis vanilla on the world map, alongside the other great vanilla-producing nations.

Connecting with the Local Community

Participating in the Agri-Expo 2023 event was not only a chance for us to promote our farm and our products, but also an opportunity to connect with the local community and build a local “vanilla” team of pollinators and farmers.

Attending the Agri-Expo 2023 event on Nevis Island has been a unique and exciting opportunity for us as a new agri venture.

Thank you to all who visited our stand at the event. We look forward to sharing our delicious, sustainably grown vanilla with you soon!