Situation Report, September 2020

Bali

Welcome from Bali. We are having a curious dry season, with a great deal of rain. Last night was a total down poor!

Weather like this is perfect for the new hotels and villas built without a thought for water supply, which are of course empty as no tourists are allowed before next year.

Unless countries sign a bubble agreement. Looks like China will be first, no doubt flights from Wuhan will start again!

The majority of the Balinese are fine, having returned to their villages and a mainly vegetarian diet. Those who were committed to tourism are truly suffering, especially in the South. Those who had taken bank loans have lost their security, for many people here, things are very sad.

Here in the middle of the island, life is pretty much back to normal. However, I don't see people up playing cards late at night anymore; like they used to, perhaps this is because I'm asleep!

Administration

We are still unable to process work permits, for the government department that issues licences to employ foreigners remains closed. Annoying, and an impediment to our acquiring investment that we are working around. We need to use agents rather than employees.

We are talking with a new notary, making sure that what has been done is correct and to ensure the proper keeping of the share register.  Our first notary enabled us to start the business and we are grateful, but we may have outgrown them.

Marketing

After a long delay, we've found a way round the problem with the website caused by the lack of work permit. We are also redoing the prospectus with input from an investment company that has evaluated the company. They spent considerable time looking into us and have given us an IRR of 30%, which of excellent.

They are recommending us to their members and indicate that they have more than ten people already interested. Other people have asked to invest, so the future is looking assured although right now we have to be careful.

Plantations

Garden 10 is completed, and looking very good. A nice video on the Facebook page. Some 1200 plants, which should see over a ton of vanilla every year.  Gardens 11,12 and 13 are cleared and the raised beds are being constructed. We will need 12,000 vanilla plants for all of these...

Gardens 2,3 and 4 have had the shade trees pruned, to expose the vanilla plants to the sun. This will stress them and promote flowering over the coming months. Only problem is we haven't seen the expected sun... There are two thousand plants here, two year old, so we are expecting a crop next year. I'll be pleased if we get a ton.

Garden 6 continues to be a star, doing really well, while garden 10 is impressive. We have some avocado flowers, unexpected. Dadap has decided to let them fruit so we can check how they do. This can damage the tree if you let them fruit too soon.

Laboratory

Our first, tiny crop has given us what looks like 50% grade 1 and 2. They are starting the second stage of processing now, sweating.

We have germinated some seeds, perhaps the first time for 200 years since the first vines left Mexico.

We are doing this to find a greater range of genetic material. Looking to breed fungus resistant strains which we can test in the lab. We are also working on producing seedlings

Other Products

One companion crop of the vanilla is long pepper, and we are starting to sell this crop. It is constantly producing so we always have pepper, and it seems nobody else is selling the fresh pepper with its amazing taste. We expect this to be popular in restaurants. Interestingly, we are trialling hot pepper sauce. This is amazing until you cook it, when it turns bland.

The test bird house is in operation, no birds yet. They can take a year to come, and we still don't have their perfume. This smells like rotten eggs, attracts the right birds and stops the wrong species coming in.

We are testing growing lion’s mane fungus, which should grow well here. If we have a market, we shall give this to local farmers as another resource. This fungus is reputed to taste like lobster. I look forward to trying it!

Next month

The focus is on getting gardens 11,12 and 13 ready. It will be three months before the shade trees are big enough to allow planting vanilla, so we shall also be preparing the young plants.

We shall continue to experiment with different shade trees. We don't like monoculture. In the same vein, we are testing various companion plants. Read more about investing in vanilla...