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'''Whether exploring a national park in the SAVA region or just travelling through Sambava, the de facto world capital of the world's vanilla agriculture, a tour of a vanilla plantation combined with a visit to a vanilla production facility can give visitors an insight into the lenghty and labour intensive process of transforming the green fruits of the vanilla orchid orchids into a the fragrant black natural vanilla spice that is the a highly appreciated ingredient in quality ice creams, pastries and countless other food products.'''

After harvesting, the green vanilla crops are brought by farmers to organised green vanilla markets across all vanilla producing regions where buyers will place bids bid for their yearly harvests. A minimum price is set by the governent each year, which in 2022 was 75,000 Ar per kilogram of green vanilla.

The crops are bought mostly mainly by exporters and producers who manage the months-long transforming process transformation of the green vanilla beans into black vanilla beans. The beans will lose moisture and shrink during the drying process and every six kilos of green beans will yeild , approximately one kilogram of black vanilla beanswill be produced.

Througout the transformationprocess, known as the curing process, the beans are graded and grouped into classifications: Grade A being Gourmet Quality, Grade B Extract quality and Grade C known as Cuts & Splits. The These classifications are , sometimes mistaken for indicators of quality but , are in fact classifications of based on humidity and therefore suitability for different end-uses. Low-humidity beans are best suited for large-scale food processing purposes since as they can easily be ground into powder and mixed into various food products. Grade B, or Extract grade vanilla beans, is the definition for the vanilla grade that is typically considered suited used for the production of vanilla extracts, while Grade A beans, or gourmet quality beansthat are of the highest humidity, are those selected have also been set aside in part for their appearance and as favoured by chefs and end-consumers who will typically split open the pods to use in scrape out its contents and mix into various cooking and baking creations. Yet, all grades can be used in cooking and baking. While grade A may have a stronger scent and a better overall appearance, Grade B or even C with its low lowest moisture content will offer the greatest volume per kilogram, effectively providing more vanilla and flavouring for the same weight and often at a lower price than Grade A beans.

In Madagascar, vanilla is rarely used in home cooking and is almost exclusively farmed for export purposes. Since the price of vanilla peaked at around USD 500 per kilo in 2018 and 2019, countless farmers have invested their time and efforts in cultivating more vanilla as their primary cash crop.

Historically, the type of vanilla grown in Madagascar is of the Planifolia species, also known as Bourbon vanilla or simply Madagascar vanilla.  The species originates from Mesoamerica where it grew centuries ago  The "Bourbon" partis a hostroical reference a French owned slave on La Reunion, then known as Bourbon Island, who discovered how to pollinate the vanilla orchids by hand to bear their fiuits, since in its original environment, pollination only occurs by bees native to Mexico.