Madagascar

Madagascar grows Vanilla planifolia, a climbing orchid native to Mexico. The island has no natural pollinator for it, so each flower is pollinated by hand on the day it opens. About 80% of Malagasy vanilla comes from the Sava region, mostly from smallholders.

Green vanilla pods have no vanilla scent. The aroma forms during several months of curing: scalding, sweating, sun drying and slow conditioning. In this process glucovanillin is hydrolysed into vanillin. Vanillin is the main single aroma compound of cured pods, but the scent of natural vanilla comes from hundreds of other compounds at once.

The government sets the opening date of the green vanilla harvest each year to limit early picking and theft. The 2024 to 2025 season in Sava opened at the end of June. In May 2023 Madagascar removed its 250 USD per kg export price floor. Prices then fell sharply, with some grades below 20 USD per kg. In June 2026 the government reinstated a lower farmgate minimum.

In cosmetics and perfumery vanilla is used as a tincture, absolute, oleoresin or CO2 extract. It has no steam-distilled essential oil in the usual sense.

Synthetic vanillin and vanillin made from eugenol or lignin cost far less than natural vanilla. Telling them apart requires carbon isotope analysis; scent alone is not enough.

Clove (Syzygium aromaticum) is grown along the east coast, mainly in the Analanjirofo region, whose Malagasy name means clove forest. About 90% of output comes from three districts: Mananara, Soanierana Ivongo and Fénérive Est. The crop covers some 80,000 hectares and is the main income of about 30,000 farm households. Madagascar ranks second in clove bud output after Indonesia but exports more, since Indonesia uses most of its crop for kretek cigarettes at home.

Buds are picked roughly from October to March. Outside the bud season, farmers cut leaves and collect fallen twigs to distil leaf oil. Malagasy clove leaf oil holds over 80% eugenol, higher than Indonesian leaf oil. Much of it is further refined into natural eugenol above 99%, a starting material for natural vanillin and flavours.

Rural leaf oil stills are fired with wood. A 2024 study in Forest Policy and Economics concluded that the clove sector needs additional measures to avoid contributing to tree cover loss. Programmes run by fragrance companies now plant firewood trees and trial fuel-efficient stills in Analanjirofo.

Clove bud, stem and leaf oils differ in eugenyl acetate and caryophyllene. Labels should state which part was distilled.

Ravintsara is the Malagasy name for the camphor tree, Cinnamomum camphora, as grown in Madagascar. Native to East Asia, it was introduced to the island and settled into a distinct chemotype: its leaf oil is rich in 1,8-cineole, often more than half the oil, with almost no camphor. In China the same species gives oils rich in camphor or linalool.

The oil is distilled from leaves, mainly in the central highlands. About 90 to 125 kg of leaves give one litre of oil. Many distillers work informally, buying leaves from equally informal collectors to meet export orders.

Ravensara (Ravensara aromatica, now often placed in Cryptocarya) is a different native species of the same family, Lauraceae. Its bark and leaf oils are quite unlike ravintsara, with high estragole or methyleugenol in some samples. The two similar names were confused in trade for many years.

When buying, the Latin name and chemotype (ct. 1,8-cineole) matter more than the trade name.

Ylang ylang (Cananga odorata f. genuina) is grown on Nosy Be island and around Ambanja on the facing mainland. The largest source remains the Comoros, especially Anjouan. According to Biolandes, world output is about 100 tonnes of oil a year, of which Madagascar supplies around 20 tonnes.

Flowers are picked early in the morning and distilled the same day. Distillation runs for many hours and is split into fractions: extra, I, II and III, or taken as a single complete oil. Early fractions are rich in esters and p-cresyl methyl ether; later ones in sesquiterpenes.

See the Comoros and Réunion page for more on ylang ylang fractions.

Voatsiperifery is a climbing pepper that grows wild in the eastern natural forests, from the coast up to the highlands. According to CIRAD in 2024 it still has no validly published scientific name. The fruit sets high in the canopy; the easiest way to harvest is to pull down the vine or fell the host tree, which damages the forest. Since around 2010 CIRAD and FOFIFA have worked on propagation from cuttings and seed to move it into cultivation.

Madagascar also produces black pepper (Piper nigrum), pink pepper (Schinus terebinthifolia) and a number of native plants distilled on a small scale, such as katrafay (Cedrelopsis grevei) in the south and south west. For species taken only from the wild, the origin of the lot and the harvesting method are the first questions to ask.