Why they don't they grow it in Mexico? I'm missing something I know. It would seem that having bees pollinate the vanilla flowers in Mexico would be cheaper than having people do it in Madagascar. Thoughts?
It’s like this with almost all crops. In their natural habitat there are also pests which has evolved to parasite the plant. This usually makes large scale agriculture difficult or even impossible. By moving a crop to some place far away you remove the natural enemies of the crop, which makes growing the crop much easier, at least for a grace period of a few decades, or even a few centuries.
