For coconut pickers, a handsome (?) bonus

Veteran coconut pickers in northern Malaysia will be rewarded by the government will be rewarded by the government with a monkey each to help pick the nuts, a Trengganu State official said Tuesday. Monkeys in this tropical country are trained to climb tall coconut trees to harvest the nuts, and well-trained monkeys can do it twice as fast as men.

Coconut harvesters who already have a monkey will be given a bicycle instead. The monkey distribution is part of a state plan to increase the income of rural workers.