Thailand’s Coconut Industry Faces Pressure to End Monkey Exploitation

The ever-increasing international outrage over the use of forced monkey labor on Thai coconut farms has pushed major producers to take meaningful action. Earlier this year, leading coconut companies in Thailand—including Asiatic Agro Industry, Suree Interfoods, Thai Coconut Public Company Limited, and Theppadungporn Coconut—formed the Thai Coconut Industry Group and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT), an animal welfare nonprofit dedicated to rescuing and protecting wildlife across Thailand and beyond. This agreement marks the first industry-wide pledge to eliminate monkey labor in the country.

While the MoU was signed this spring, the issue remains urgent and the agreement has recently gained international attention as Thai producers now work to push for legislative reforms that would make the use of monkeys in coconut harvesting illegal nationwide. This is a crucial step toward ending a practice that causes immense suffering for pigtailed macaques, who are chained, abused, and kept in horrific conditions when they are not being forced to climb tall trees to pick coconuts.

Public awareness—driven by undercover investigations and global advocacy campaigns—has led to major retailers worldwide boycotting brands linked to monkey labor. These boycotts have already cost Thailand an estimated 2 billion baht annually. With Thailand being one of the world’s leading coconut exporters and the industry supporting more than 300,000 farming households, producers are now racing to restore consumer trust and protect the country’s economy.

Although the creation of an industry coalition committed to reform is a positive sign, real change requires a national law banning monkey labor and full supply-chain transparency. Until then, it is still impossible to guarantee that coconut milk produced in Thailand is cruelty-free.

That’s why we’re calling on Walmart, the largest grocery retailer in the United States, to remove all Thai coconut milk from its shelves and source only from countries that do not use monkey labor—until Thailand implements verifiable reforms and ends this abuse for good.

If you haven’t already, please sign and share our petition to ensure that this momentum leads to real, lasting change—not vague promises that fail to protect animals from exploitation.