Trekking the world with both an Engineering and Politics background, I find processes fascinating.

Production often starts in villages


    ...taking us via community projects


       ...through warehouses filled with small, make-shift machinery


           ...to full blown industrial monsters.

Starting in India, my travels have raised my curiosity towards the world wide development of industry. Here are some of my observations... for you to draw from.

A Cup of Tea

Munnar, in Kerala, is know for the vast farmland. They grow tea, coffee and cocoa. They grow it, treat it, package it and sell it.

Tata (yes the car company!), used to own the whole plantation, all the way since the late 1800s.

In the 1990s, they realized that TEA as a product had a limited demand (nationally and internationally), and a limited profit margin. They kindly (as is advertized), sold over 80% of the company to the locals, who created a co-op, whereby each labourer became a share holder in the business. How kind !?

So... back to the production line.

Robbie taught me that steam is often used to transmit energy from one side of a production plant to another. Steam in this case was made by a guy feeding wood into a glorified bonfire. I helped.

Inside the factory, fresh tea leaves were hand-guided onto a conveyor belt.

A conveyor belt that ran 30m... a process of chopping the leaves ever finer.

Until the once-leaves resemble a green (smelly) mush. 

Now they have the shape of tea leaves as we know them, they then enter a fermenter, to slow roast the leaves until they turn brown.

 

And out drops tea. A final (vibrating) machine shakes the tea leaves into bags to be sold.

Coconut Rope?

Alleppey, in Kerala is known for the backwater tours.

The backwaters are the interconnected saltwater river networks that provide many people with access to transport and fish.

Villages are widespread, and daily commutes to the town are not easy. So the villager have created a co-op business. Each household handles a portion of the production cycle.

In this case, the villagers we met made rope from coconut fiber. Coconut husks are soaked for 6 months, until the fiber is softened and fluffy.

 

A simple motorized machine spins a small hook. The women carry bags of lose fiber in front of them. The hook catches a few fibers, and in turn those fibers catch more fibers, and twist them.

The twisted rope, then catches more fibers as it spins... the result: a robe magically appears out of the bags of lose fibers! The women (not men), walk back as the rope grows.

Absolutely incredible! The end result - rope.

The materials for the rope are sourced elsewhere, and the rope will to go elsewhere. The rope will be used in construction, and in the making of mats, carpets and crafts. 

The co-op shares the profits at the end of the year, and the villagers only earn a minimal labour wage. In the case of the rope: $0.02 per 20m length of rope (takes about 4 minutes to make 2 lengths of rope)...

Doing the maths... $1.00 per hour.

Better than starving.

Coconut Production (Lakshadweep Islands)

The Kadmat island supports 6000 inhabitants. The island is 8km long, and is dense with palm trees. Electricity is solar powered (a government funded project), water is collected from bore holes, and the only form of production, is Coconut.

Coconuts are collected in piles outside the building.

Husks are removed by impaling the coconut on a steel spike. By hand.

The shells are then discarded (to make rope...).

The coco-nuts are then chipped at (by hand), breaking the shell, but preserving the perfectly soft flesh.

The soft flesh is then cleaned, cut into small pieces, and collected in buckets.

The chopped coconut flesh is then placed onto large trays, and put into an oven to dry.

A machine grinds the pulp into small flakes.

A sieve then separates the descimated coconut from the bigger pieces.

The coconut is then weighed by hand.

Parcelled and sealed.

And sold. At $1.50 per 750g.

And that is the islands main industry. One factory.