How to Count Vanilla

Organic certification programs aim to promote transparent economic, environmental, and social trade relationships as part of their social mission. Yet, these programs often produce forms of knowledge and accountability that, while more transparent for some groups, are less transparent for others. With a focus on the vanilla supply chain in Madagascar, I ethnographically examine interactions between smallholder vanilla farmers and organic certifying agents. I note how the organic certification process privileges certain practices as transparent, and thus desirable. These include written, quantifiable, and formalized representations of vanilla fields. This focus ignores or undermines local forms of transparency, which often rely on spoken, indirect, and informal market mechanisms. The forms of transparency favored by certification projects have economic consequences, as they open spaces for additional external actors – including certification agencies themselves – to capture profit and value from the vanilla market.