A few years ago, Veena had a problem: She couldn’t find anyone willing to pick her coconuts.
Veena is a 37-year-old housewife who, like many people in South India, goes by one name. She lives on a small family farm in Kerala, dotted with coconut palms.
Kerala — “land of coconuts” in the local language, Malayalam — used to have plenty of coconut pickers for hire. They were usually lower caste men who’d shimmy up the trees and pick the nuts for a fee.
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