Spice is right as Indonesian startups eye value in vanilla

JAKARTA: Indonesian Sofa Arbiyanto had a manufacturing job in South Korea two years ago when he learned about the high price of vanilla on the global market, and decided to try his luck at growing it.

Now he has 2,000 vanilla vines on a 1,200 sq m (0.3 acre) farm in Blora, Central Java, started after he did some internet research and joined online groups of vanilla farmers.