Woman harvesting coffee beans in Karnataka, India

From the archive record

A South Indian woman harvesting coffee beans in the state of Karnataka, India. Coffee production in India is dominated in the hill tracts of South Indian states, with the state of Karnataka accounting 53% followed by Kerala 28% and Tamil Nadu 11% of production of 8,200 tonnes. Indian coffee is said to be the finest coffee grown in the shade rather than direct sunlight anywhere in the world. There are approximately 250,000 coffee growers in India; 98% of them are small growers. As of 2009, the production of coffee in India was only 4.5% of the total production in the world. Coffee has been cultivated in the Karnataka state of India for more than 300 years, and in 2010 India was the world's sixth-largest coffee producer. Some 70 percent of Indian coffee production takes place on small farms