Three generations in the coconut triangle

Cocolaya begins on a single family estate near Kurunegala, in the heart of Sri Lanka's coconut triangle — the stretch of land between Kurunegala, Puttalam and Colombo where the island's finest coconuts have grown for centuries.

Our grandfather planted his first grove in 1948, the year of independence. He farmed the way everyone did then — without chemicals, because there were none to be had. When synthetic fertilisers and pesticides arrived decades later, our family made a decision that seemed stubborn at the time: nothing changes. The soil was healthy. The trees were healthy. The coconut decides the schedule, never the other way around.

Today that stubbornness has a name — certified organic — and the estate has grown into a small network of neighbouring family growers who farm to the same rule. Together we formed a Fairtrade small-producer organisation, so the people who climb the trees share in what the harvest earns.