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By Catelyn Fitzgerald ’23
Staff Writer
In recent months, multiple grocery chains, including Costco and Wegmans, have stopped selling Thailand-based Chaokoh brand coconut milk following a PETA investigation that found the use of monkey labor in several farms that supply the company. The use of monkey labor is not limited to one company but may be a widespread issue across Thailand’s coconut industry. Issues of transparency and accuracy of information lie at the heart of the controversy, as reports of the treatment of monkeys and the companies that rely on their labor vary widely.
As the world’s second-largest coconut exporter — Thailand exported around 70,000 tons of coconuts in 2018 — animal abuse allegations have significant implications for the future of the coconut industry. According to NPR, training pig-tailed macaques to pick coconuts is a practice that has existed in Thailand for around 400 years. The fruit is the main part of the macaques’ diet, and they are able to climb tall coconut trees with ease and drop coconuts to the ground where a farmer can collect them. For humans, coconut harvesting can be dangerous, as farmers must poke a pole with a sharp blade on the end up into the air to cut coconuts down. Multiple coconuts fall from the tree at one time and can hurt or even kill the farmer standing below.
Claims regarding the scale of monkey labor vary, making the issue difficult to navigate. On one account, conservationist Edwin Wiek stated in a Public Radio International article that the use of monkey labor has declined and now makes up the smallest fraction of coconut industry production. The article also states that monkey labor is an outdated method and, as such, is mostly used on small, independent farms rather than in large operations. Yet in another account, Arjen Schroevers, who runs a school that trains monkeys to pick coconuts using nonviolent methods, told NPR that “it would be difficult to find a coconut product made in Thailand that wasn’t picked by a monkey.” There is no exact data on the prevalence of the use of monkey labor on coconut farms.
The additional debate over the treatment of coconut-picking monkeys makes monkey labor a murky issue. A PETA investigation into eight coconut farms found monkeys “fitted with rigid metal collars and kept chained or tethered for extended periods” and that the social animals are kept in isolation. The fangs that macaques have for self-defense are also allegedly removed in some cases to protect the monkey’s owner. In a contrasting claim, Leslie Sponsel, an anthropology professor at the University of Hawaii who studies monkey-human relationships in Thailand, told NPR that he had never observed any mistreatment of monkeys, and instead likened them to the family pets of farmers. The training of animals to perform jobs, such as service animals and drug-sniffing dogs, is practiced throughout the globe, and in many cases, without controversy. PETA’s findings suggest that monkey abuse does occur in Thailand’s coconut industry, but it remains unclear whether the mistreatment of monkeys lies under the responsibility of a handful of farmers or if monkey labor itself is indicative of maltreatment.
In other coconut-producing countries, such as Brazil and India, other methods of harvest are used, including platform systems, ladders and the planting of dwarf coconut trees. These strategies make the human harvesting of coconuts more efficient than the use of monkeys. PETA has developed a list of brands that do not source from coconut farms that use monkey labor for those looking to buy coconut products ethically.