Main shelling room for 170 local ladies making 36 rupees per kg, and shelling 8-10kg/day for a total of about $5/day. A few of the older ladies were given metal desks and chairs, but the rest sat on the ground, breaking the husk with a stick, and then peeling away the toxic black husk. Nearby was the peeling room, where the inner skin is taken off and the cashews are sorted by wholeness and quality. Most of the raw cashews are imported from Africa, and Kollam has been the world's cashew capital for many decades, but that dominance started to disappear a few years ago with the invention of a cashew shelling machines. All of the large private cashew companies have now shut down, and all that remains are a few government processing facilities, like this one, Ayathil factory #6, owned by Kerala State Cashew Development Corp., which opened in 1969 but now operates at a loss. I asked why it was only women doing this work, and was told that men won't work for such low wages.
