Women de-husking Areca nuts in Kerala

From the archive record

Indian women de-husking Areca nuts manually at a village in Kerala, India. Areca nut is an important cash crop in India. About 90 percent of areca nut cultivation is concentrated in Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal and Assam. The tree is mainly grown for its nuts which are commonly called as supari in Hindi and adike in Kannada. The nuts are usually chewed with betel leaf and a little lime. Once the areca fruits are plucked from trees manual workers remove the nut from the fruits using a knife and then cut it into small pieces. Another process called curing involves fresh fruits with husk (less ripe) are soaked in flowing water for some period. The process helps in loosening the husk which is plucked by hand and the nut removed. The remaining husk over the nut is scraped with the help of a s