Kerala, India
The main cashew-nut peeling room where the inner skin of each nut is removed by hand and the nuts are sorted for wholeness and quality. The city of Kollam, in the state of Kerala, was long considered the world's cashew capital and has imported raw cashews for processing from Africa. But that dominance began to wane a few years ago with the invention of cashew-shelling machines in Vietnam. All the large private cashew companies in the area have now shut down, and all that remains are a few government processing facilities, like this one, which opened in 1969 but now operate at a loss. I asked why only women do this work and was told that men won't work for such low wages.