Next month: ylang ylang; Readers’ corner
Driving along the winding, potholed roads of the island of Anjouan, in the Comoros archipelago, you can smell the nation’s most iconic crop long before you see it,’ writes journalist Tommy Trenchard in next month’s Geographical. ‘The scent – a heady, floral, spicy cocktail somewhat reminiscent of jasmine – is most powerful at dawn, when it spills out of the plantations that dot the landscape and flows down over the steep volcanic hillsides towards the Indian Ocean below.’
The crop in question is the ylang-ylang flower, and this little-known string of islands set in the warm waters between Mozambique and Madagascar has been its heartland ever since it was first introduced by French colonialists in the late 19th century.
Despite being one of the poorest and least developed nations on earth, in recent decades the Comoros has dominated the world supply, producing as many as eight out of every ten litres of ylang-ylang essential oil reaching the perfumeries and cosmetics companies of France. The oil is used in everything from soaps to incense, but it is as an ingredient in fine perfume that Comorian ylang-ylang is best known. Since 1921, it has even been a key component of the most famous scent of all time – Chanel No. 5.
And with the country’s other main exports being vanilla and cloves, the archipelago has long been known to sailors, settlers, traders and other visitors as ‘the perfume isles’.
Yet in recent years, market forces far beyond the control of local farmers, combined with environmental challenges and further compounded by the global Covid-19 pandemic, have left the ylang-ylang industry reeling, and have served as a reminder that this fragrant flower can be not only a blessing for the thousands of Comorian farmers, flower pickers and oil distillers who rely on it, but also a curse.
Next month, Tommy meets those who make a living in the world of ylangylang and examines the market forces which govern their lives.