The Cocopeat of Kerala

Kerala is situated on the South West coast of India right beside Tamil Nadu.  The capital is Cochin with its bustling harbour lined with fishing nets and home to fishing boats of all shapes and sizes.

Much of the architecture has been influenced by the Chinese who traded along the coast leaving legacy of cooking pots similar to woks, cleavers and pickling jars.  As well as the Chinese, the abundance of spices in Kerala attracted the attentions of the early Phoenicians, Syrians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all of whom were happy just to trade and return home.  Fighting over the territory didnít begin until the late 15th Century when the British, Dutch, Portuguese and French tried to stake their claims to the spice riches.  The British ended up the victors and set up a factory and depot dealing in spices in Tellicherry, a name still associated with good quality pepper.

Black pepper is prolific in Kerala and makes a major contribution to Indiaís input of one third of the worldís production.  Cardamom too is a native here and the warm, damp growing conditions are ideal for ginger and turmeric rhizomes to flourish.

Kerala is famous for its inland waterways including lakes, lagoons, canals and rivers, collectively known as backwaters, bordered by tropical, lush, greenery and paddy fields as well as homes and schools.  The backwaters provide a road network along which transport in the form of canoes, grass-thatched rice boats and overloaded water buses ply their trade.

Kerala means ìsland of the coconuts and no part of the coconut is wasted - the oil is used for frying and the dressing of hair.  The flesh appears in a large number of cooked dishes and the coir which is produced from the husk of the coconut, is used to make floor mats, mattresses, made as cocopeat used in horticulture as a soil mix to hold water and avoid root related deceases. .

Coir is big business here - a lot of Coir related products are exported to Europe, middle wast, Japan and USA,

Apart from coir, may popular cocopeat exporters from india source cocopeat from kerala. companies use cocopeat as oil absorbents, its an industrial application, many horse studs in the middle east and europe use them for horse bedding.

Kerala Coir and cocopeat products are in demand worldwide

Coconut Farmers in Tamilnadu, Kerala and Karnataka Face Labour Shortage

Hit by steep fall in prices and mounting cost of cultivation along with shortage of labour, the once prosperous coconut farmers in these three regions are looking for Government intervention to help them overcome the the current crisis.

Labour shortages could provide a challenging start to the India's coconut season.

The tendency among the youth to switch over to lucrative Urban jobs has only aggravated the crisis further, he said. Over 5,000 migrant labourers are in farmlands of Kerala, Tamilnadu and Karnataka to work over the course of the season.

However experts said growers across these three states would still have a battle on their hands to get their coconuts off the tree and store it in optimal condition for better prices.

“Tamilnadu growing regions are very challenged, and in some parts of Kerala it is difficult to find workers as well because there's just not the big urban environment around which you can bring those workers from,” notes, experts. All dependent industries like the Coconut Oil, Coir Exports, Coco Peat Exports For Horticulture are also hit due the crisis.

“The tough front end is getting the coconuts off the tree."