Bastard Spice or Champagne of Cinnamon? Conflicting Value Creations along Cinnamon Commodity Chains in Northern Vietnam

Abstract

In upland northern Vietnam ethnic minority farmers are cultivating what some global retailers refer to as the 'champagne of cinnamon'. However, a closer examination reveals that this spice is not 'true cinnamon' but cassia, with the exact species remaining uncertain. Drawing on commodity chain literature and debates over the creation of value and quality, the aims of this article are twofold. First, it investigates the making of 'Vietnamese cinnamon' as it moves from the hills of northern Vietnam to supermarket shelves in the global North, and the actors and livelihoods involved. Second, it explores how different actors define 'Vietnamese cinnamon' and infuse it with often-contradictory values. Based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork over a four-year period, the study finds that the state and cooperating non-government organizations tend to ignore ongoing taxonomic confusion while creating a geographical indicator to highlight the uniqueness of this commodity. Yet, concurrently, exporters and retailers in the global North focus on other distinctions as key marketing tools including remoteness, ethnicity, taste and health benefits. The article thus calls for an expanded analytical focus on competing value creation for agro-food products and on the impacts for commodity producers, in this case ethnic minority farmers in the global South.

Spices as the saviour? The complex vulnerabilities of three commodity crop booms and ethnic minority livelihoods in Yunnan's agrarian frontier

“…2 2 While cultivators in China and across the border in Vietnam are known to also harvest the leaves and twigs for essential oil production (Fang, 2005; Derks et al ., 2020), this was not found in our study sites. …”

“…1 1 Cinnamumum cassia is the species most likely being grown in this region; however, interviewees at the Honghe Research Institute of Tropical Agricultural Science of Yunnan Province in 2018 noted that this has never been verified (see Derks et al ., 2020 regarding similar confusion in northern Vietnam). …”

Postharvest Standard Practices for Improving Cinnamon Quality Product in Kerinci

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“…In 1997, Program 661 ("The Five Million Hectare Reforestation Program") began encouraging farmers to plant trees not only on "barren hills", but also on other "inefficient" parcels of land, predominantly lower-elevation fields that rotated corn, cassava, and banana trees. Farmers were encouraged to plant mỡ (Magnolia conifera), keo (acacia), and quế (Chinese cassia, or "bastard cinnamon'; see [41] for a disambiguation of "Vietnamese cinnamon"), among other trees. One sub-district official noted that "Cinnamon is the most valuable timber tree in this area.…”