Coconut Market Weekly Update 11th May 2026 – El Niño signal for 2026 and why coconut should care
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Monkeys Are Not Used in Coconut Farming in the Philippines
You may have seen the article in the UK Times this weekend about the use of monkeys to pick coconuts in Koh Samui, Thailand, based on research from PETA.
We wanted to follow up about how our coconuts are produced in the Philippines.
It is a very different story in the Philippines, the world’s largest exporter of coconuts; it was never the custom to use monkeys to pick coconuts or any other animals for that matter.
Harvesting methods are either manual (climbing) or using bamboo poles, or more recently, coconut palms have been cultivated into much shorter palms to make picking easier.
We’ve visited farms all over the Philippines as part of our relationships with growers and manufacturers over the past 50 years, and we have never seen monkeys used.
Our manufacturers ensure we farm coconuts ethically while helping farmers all over the Philippines prosper.
