You were downvoted, but I think this is an excellent question, especially about faddish products, and especially when they are a staple of LDCs.

It's easy for the spike in demand to have bad environmental consequences (e.g., biodiesel, Fiji water), or economic consequences for people who depend on the crop as a staple (e.g., quinoa). And this would certainly be a factor in whether I will buy the product.

But this doesn't seem to be the case (yet) with coconut water: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/07/coconut-water...

I visited Kerala several years ago, and I have to say the life of a coconut farmer there seemed to have its advantages. They spent their days tending their carefully cultivated trees just a couple hundred meters from a beautiful coastline.

What?? Look, coconut water is a new trend in the US, but not everywhere else where it's been consumed for quite a long time. Here in Brazil I've been drinking it (me and everybody else) since I was a kid, and it was just like having a soda or some OJ (actually the two came after the coconut), and Brazil doesn't come close to how much the Philippines and Indonesia produce, and we're the fifth largest producer. There's plenty of coconut water to go to the US.

P.S. We also drink a lot of sugar cane juice here, with ice and a bit of lime squeezed in it. I like it even better. Maybe it will be a fad in some 5 or 10 years, though it's sugar content is (obviously) quite high, and I don't think it keeps as well as coconut water. Give it a try if you're ever in Little Havana in FL.

I know it's an old habit in some countries, but when something becomes a fad in the West it tends to get ugly, at least when it comes to waste. My fear is that this will contribute to deforestation even more and for what (except for making some people rich).

Also supporting hundreds of millions of sales and preserving the same quality is a problem; as someone noted the stuff they sell here it's ridden with sugar and preservatives. I'm sure it's not as tasty and healthy as your grandma's backyard stuff.

I've spent some time in India and it is the same upthere. you can get a fresh coconut to drink its juice almost everywhere. It is less common to find cane juice as it requires a machine to crush the cane.

Coconuts are already being produced in vast quantities (60+ million tonnes[1]) for their meat and oil. I imagine the coconut water manufacturers are just using the water which would otherwise be thrown away, which is why the coconut water market has been able to grow so rapidly without increasing global coconut production.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut#Cultivation

Not necessarily true. The coconuts used for oil and meat are picked much later than the coconuts used for water. Of course that's only the case if you're talking about pure coconut water -- coconut brands who use concentrate are probably making the concentrate from the mature coconuts that are used for their meat and oil. gross stuff.

I think in a lot of environments, it was fed to animals. So, its kind of brilliant to repackage it for humans to eat directly.

Eheheh, coconut meat.

> “Part of it was the idea that the developing world needs as many alternative exports as possible,” he said. “And 85 countries around the world were growing coconuts."

In the costal areas of India there are considerable amounts of coconut trees. Its not uncommon for a family with a moderate lot to have dozens of coconut trees.

Who are these pathological downvoters on HN? I wish there was a way to out them.

Many just need a hug and some emotional counselling.