Thailand’s US$400 million coconut trade caught up in ‘monkey abuse’ scandal

Waitrose, Boots and Walgreens are among the retailers pulling Thai coconut milk from their shelves after a PETA investigation alleged rampant abuse

Even Boris Johnson’s fiancée weighed in on the ‘enslavement’ of coconut-picking macaques. But locals say its an age-old practice and deny the claims

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A monkey is trained to harvest coconuts at the Monkey Theatre in Samui Island, Thailand. File photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 4:00pm, 9 Jul 2020Updated: 11:07am, 10 Jul 2020

For Somjai Saekhow, training monkeys to pick coconuts is a way of life, and something that trainers like her have been doing in southern Thailand for centuries.

The 48-year-old, who runs the First Monkey School in Surat Thani, 650km south of Bangkok, said the country’s coconut farmers share a close bond with their pigtail macaques and are “proud of their monkeys, especially when they can do so well”.

But this age-old practice is now under threat after being condemned by animal rights activists – jeopardising the country’s 12.3 billion baht (US$394.8 million) coconut industry.

Thailand is the world’s top exporter of coconut milk, much of which goes to the three biggest importers – Australia, Britain and the United States. But following the recent uproar over the use of monkeys for harvesting, Thai coconut milk is disappearing from British supermarket shelves, as well as some in the US and the Netherlands.

The move follows an undercover investigation by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) activist group, which said it had visited eight farms where monkeys “are forced to pick coconuts” for use in popular Thai coconut milk brands such as Aroy-D and Chaokoh.