When you think of Madagascar, you immediately think of the main crops on this island, which are cocoa, sugar and vanilla.
Vanilla is a member of the orchid family. Like cocoa, vanilla is native to Mexico. At first, it was used as a sweetener for chocolate products. Vanilla was later used on its own as a flavor of its own, but it was found that the plant did not grow elsewhere, but only in Mexico.
Then, in 1836, a scientist discovered that for pollination, the vanilla plant depends on a certain type of bee that lives only in Mexico. He then invented a way to artificially pollinate the plant, so that it could be cultivated in any hot climate nation.
Today, Madagascar and a number of other islands in the Indian Ocean account for about three-quarters of the world's vanilla production.
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