Maclauchlin river, Castle Bruce, Commonwealth of Dominica

Maclauchlin river is where Sylvanilla® was born in February 2015, from few Vanilla pods cultivated in Don' family farm on the East coast of the Nature Island of Dominica. Maclauchlin farm has been continuously transmitted for more than 10 generations now and is planted with coconut, banana and avocado trees, mango trees, sugar cane, guava and orange trees, cocoa, coffee trees, vanilla vines, cherries and plums trees, ginger and turmeric, dasheen and tannia, and I'm certainly forgetting lots of them. It's a mesmerizing abundance of fruits, roots, vegetables and aromatic herbs, nestled right inside the forest and crossed by the river which descends to the rivermouth and the Atlantic Ocean, loaded with fishes, shells and crayfishes.

This is where we, Don Clarke aka @TheCaribbeanGardener and Sylvie Polano aka @Sylvanilla®, first met and established in February 2015. We shared our first lunch together with his family in the farm by the river, and eat a load of crayfishes in the same big calabash bowl. Don' mother pretended it was her last calabash for both of us, and as if she was already seeing us "in the same boat", from that day on we bonded.

Coming from the professional gastronomy world with a solid expertise in commodity trading, it is when I met Don and explored his family farm that I finally linked my area of ​​expertise and vocation.

Don is a professional fisherman and farmer at time. Same way his grandfather and father did, he feeds himself and his family from the land and the sea. Yet, unless he can regularly sell to someone else living abroad, he hardly can make a living out of it. I've been a gastronomy professional and commodity trading operator for years, at the core of natural resources which I move from where they're extracted to where they are needed. Yet, I wasn't able to feed myself without buying food, nor I could plant or fish. And unless I work abroad for someone else, I can hardly make a living out of it.

That was the trigger for me. Not only I was offered the opportunity to learn how to fish, how to farm, and how to feed myself finally. I also was given the opportunity to add up and share my skills and expertise into a win win partnership and surely many more to come. We started to supply chefs with fishes straight from the sea, then fruits, vegetables, cocoa and vanilla straight from the farm.

What else we needed? More agroforestry farmers all together. The resources I was previously moving for mining and trading companies, I can move for agroforestry vanilla farmers and directly connect organic vanilla producers with professionals end-users and consumers.

Don since continues to fish in Dominica and do farming at time and takes care of the vanilla. He also used to grow micro-greens by UMAMI in Zurich Switzerland for couple years. I am continuously learning about Vanilla also through all existing terroirs and species, organise vanilla markets and workshops with farmers, with chefs, with professional end-users and private customers, and promote all terroirs and species of Vanilla actually existing all around the world.

With a little work in symbiosis with the nature, Maclauchlin farm can reach dizaines of kilos of vanilla pods per hectare and many more organic crops to come by 2025 and 2026 ! You too can participate to Maclauchlin' Farm development program by Sylvanilla® 🌱 and be rewarded with the precious vanilla pods once cured and refined.

We thank you very much for your kind support and if you ever pass by the West Indies we also look forward to welcome you to Dominica, aka Waitukubuli, the Nature Island of the Caribbean.

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