Patchouli in Rwanda - perfume industry safety net? Economic safety net for Rwandans?

-

The price of patchouli essential oil has skyrocketed in the past year. An crucial and historic scent in perfume and body care products, various issues have conspired to create a shortage and suppliers and formulators are scrambling to control cost increases in their products.

I know I'm an eternal optimist. I also have a strong background in ethnobotany, economic botany and agriculture. I specialized in tropical and subtropical agriculture in my studies, keep this in mind when you check out the You Tube link, below.

In 2005, a team from Haiti met with the President of Rwanda to propose a Patchouli project. There is a series of five videos on You Tube recording the process of establishing a patchouli essential oil industry in Rwanda by the movers and shakers of this project. The videos are educational and uplifting. I am very aware of he political and military turmoils of Rwanda, having several close friends who traveled there in the aftermath and are helping with the rebuilding. Relative stability has returned, more so in some areas than others. When poverty is addressed in a forthright and productive way, all may prosper. Perhaps patchouli is one economic way to move forward.

Patchouli essential oil prices have skyrocketed recently due to many factors in the countries producing the heady oil. A few years ago environmental and political maladies struck the vanilla absolute industry, and those with vision took cuttings to India and Indonesia and now vanilla prices - for the beans, not the absolute as it appears the extractors have kept the price artificially high - have come back to a reasonable level.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XgA1bD4h8Q

I love the methodical way in which the questions about establishing and distilling the oil are addressed. Distillation units in place - at this time for geranium - appear in videos # 4 and 5.

Sustainable agriculture, and opportunistic agriculture to replace the fields that may be disappearing due to urban development, desertification or other reasons will always exist, so I do not despair very much when I hear of problems (such as the vanilla crisis of teh early 2000's.)

I find the videos very uplifting and relaxing -- and realistic in what may occur.



Comments

  1. Anonymous10/18/2008 10:03 AM

    Hi Anya,
    My name is Arthur from kenya and 've really been interested alot in patchauli farming.Where and how can I get the seed to introduce to our farmers in Kenya? Kenyas' climate is fairly the same as in Rwanda cozwe are all close to the equator.

    Apart from that 've been working o a site with a friend known as www.try-african-food.com and we are tryin to promote indigenous traditional and organic african foods.We also have alot of chamomile from our farmers and we are looking for markets.

    I look forward to your responce.
    my mail is:
    mdkarugu@try-african-food.com
    cell:+254 720869339
    Tell:+254 0202113836

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Boxgasm - for perfumers, aromatherapists, bath and body manufacturers, chandlers. What the heck is a boxgasm? Well, read below and you may have one.

-
Image
Project Boxgasm Announcement: If you are an artisan who makes perfume, bath & body products, aromatherapy products, candles - you can now make your own custom boxes! The Natural Perfumers Guild wishes to share this discovery with everyone, so please share the link to this blog with other groups, forums and chat places you may frequent.  The more the merrier - let's upgrade our products to the next level, with lovely, custom boxes!  I am the President of the Guild, and I like to roam social media sites and check out, and "like" the various projects and announcements of the Guild members.  Little did I dream when I visited a Facebook page of one of our members, a page that only had 21 followers, since it's new, that I'd discover something that can help all artisan small business owners. But there it was, an iconic image out of South Africa - custom perfume boxes! When I called some members of the Natural Perfumers Guild and told them about the discovery th
Read more

Ask the Perfumer Sunday Oct 21, 2012

-
Image
Ask the Perfumer - and an Ambergris hypothesis Guild member Lisa Coburn posted a link on Facebook that took me to a video on how cephalopods--squid, cuttlefish and octopus, are masters of disguise.  As I watched it, I made a perfume connection, straight to the elusive, mysterious, rare and valued ambergris, a gorgeous material used in perfumery. Photo of the famed 'Yeti' chunk of ambergris. Ambergris is produced by the stomach/intestinal secretions of the sperm whale to protect its insides from the sharp beaks of the squid and cuttlefish, two main items in its diet.  The whale evacuates the chunk of ambergris when it becomes large enough to be an irritant on its own, albeit a softer, rounder irritant compared to the beak and cartilage of the squid or cuttlefish.  As a perfumer, I often have to gently remind excitable newbies ;-)  that the scent of the ambergris is secondary to its major contribution to a perfume, which is its ability to 'marry' and allo
Read more

Contest: Fresh ginger, fresh ginger, wherefort art thou fresh ginger?

-
Image
Can you help me?  I need two things from my readers. There will be a freebie gift for two helpful souls who reply, one for each subject. First:  Back in late 2006, I stumbled across *fresh* ginger root essential oil at liberty natural.  There were two - one from Madagascar, one from Indonesia.  I immediately told my perfumery friends about it, and I used the fresh version in the kits for my students.  Why the excitement? Fresh grated ginger - zest, fresh, hot, spicy fragrance Previously, the only ginger root oil available was from the peeled, sun-dried roots, and it was a middle note for perfumery.  It had a mellow, soft fragrance, much like the dried ginger powder you get for baking purposes.  This fresh ginger, on the other hand, smelled just like the fresh cut or grated root!  Hot, spicy, wet, luscious, and a top note! I've used the aged, dried ginger EO, because it is valuable in perfumery and for food and drink purposes, but its soft character was just that, soft, c
Read more