Indonesia is the biggest producer of vanilla in the world along with Madagascar, Mexico, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Tahiti, and India. Indonesian vanilla has been known for a long time in the international market, especially in America and Europe. Indonesia exports to the world keep increasing from time to time with a significance improvement, making these commodities projected to continue to increase in the future.
Indonesia is located exactly under the equator, has tropical climate with the average temperature over 25 Celsius degrees. With this tropical climate Indonesia can produce many kinds of plantation crops. Vanilla is one of the agriculture products and has been known since a long time ago, Indonesian vanilla is quite like vanilla that is produced in other countries such as Madagascar, Mexico and Comoros with the characteristics like contains a high vanillin content, rich sweetness and a strong scent, quite different from the one produced in Tahiti, which has a low vanillin content and a scent similar to anise.
The most famous variant of vanilla is from Indonesia with thick bean, oily and stretchy feature. One of variant with strong physical section. The scent of the vanilla is a bit fermented and the whole scent profile is same as plum. It is suitable to boil a fruit, cookie baking and compote.
Vanilla plant in Indonesia is liked by many consumer, both local and international consumer. This is because the quality of Indonesian vanilla is better than vanillas from Mexico, USA, Madagascar which also known as the producers of good quality vanilla. Therefore there needs to be a cultivation method for vanilla that can produce good quality vanilla seeds in a large amount in a short time.
In Indonesia, this plant is developed in North Sumatra, Lampung, West Java, East Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), North Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, and some parts in Papua. Until now most of the cultivation of vanilla farm in Indonesia are smallholders and some are national private institutions.
