Handbook of Vanilla Science and Technology

INTERVIEW WITH EGBERT VALENCIO

Egbert Valencio, 34 years old and the youngest of 9 children, could easily have remained in Belize City where he lived for several years, but his devotion to his cultural heritage was such that he determined to return to his native village of Barranco. His decision was influenced by a Garifuna youth movement born in Belize City to repopulate the oldest Garifuna village in Belize. Many of the people who returned to this small fishing village on the Caribbean coast simultaneous with Egbert remained only a short while, but Egbert has stayed and is raising his family here. He is the only one of his siblings currently living in Barranco and he resides with his father Raymond, who is the principal fisherman for the village, his mother Lucille, his wife Emelda, and their infant daughter Lumar.

For the last 4 years, Mr Valencio has worked as a ranger, and sometimes as a boat captain, for SATIIM. (SATIIM’s mission is “linking biodiversity management with the physical and cultural survival of the indigenous people who surround the Sarstoon and Temash Nature Preserve.”) He has become a well-respected member of the community, sitting on the Village Council and teaching environmental classes at the Barranco primary school.

About a mile outside the village of Barranco, Egbert owns a 10-acre parcel of land that abuts land owned by his brothers and sisters. Eventually, he will build a home on this property to house his family. In the meantime, he actively farms the land and has planted nutmeg, coconuts, cassava, agaves, and a wide variety of fruit trees.

When Mr Valencio speaks about vanilla, his eyes sparkle. He is a champion of the nascent vanilla industry in Toledo and is the vice-chair for OVA, the Organic Vanilla Association. When he is out in the field for SATIIM, Egbert, an acute observer of the native flora, frequently spots wild vanilla vines, sometimes in flower and sometimes with beans on them. We visit his farm where he’s established a small plantation with plants received from OVA and about 50 plants gathered in the wild from a nearby village. The latter plants are thriving and already developing racemes at 14 months of age. When we walk the perimeter of his farm, he shows us the vanilla that he discovered growing there. Based on his observations and our own, it would appear that there are as many as five different species growing at the periphery of the farm. When we leave his farm, we are elated and of a particularly healthy vanilla vine Mr Valencio says “That plant was green. It was smiling. No,” he pauses briefly before speaking again, “it was laughing!”