Ugh - more anti-science crap from the nitwits at ETC?
More than 90% of all vanilla flavoring used today is chemically synthesized from petrochemical or wood pulp byproducts.
The vanillin biosynthetic pathway is fairly simple and can be engineered into yeast, so you can "brew it up" in a vat, rather than producing it chemically - in much the same way that all commercial insulin has been produced for the past 30 years.
And *this* is what they are protesting, using some fairly ridiculous fear-mongering language...