That's why scientists there have built a tree-climbing coconut-picking robot that may one day fill the gap.
The prototype device was created by a team at AmritaVishwaVidyapeetham University, led by associate professor Rajesh Kannan Megalingam.
It is called Amaran and has been in development for three years.
In the 15-minute process, users first have to manually assemble the robot's ring-shaped body at the base of a coconut tree.
Using its eight inward-facing, omnidirectional rubber wheels, Amaran then climbs upward.
Users control it wirelessly from the ground, utilizing a joystick device or smartphone app to move up and down and rotate around the trunk.
Once the robot reaches the coconuts, its arm extends and positions itself at the base of a bunch of ripe coconuts.
Using a circular saw blade at the end of the arm, Amaran then slices away allowing the coconut to fall to the ground.
In field tests at a coconut farm, the robot successfully climbed trees up to 15.2 meters tall with trunks tilted up to 30 degrees.
Additionally, while the human coconut harvester was found to work faster, Amaran can work for longer periods of time, potentially making up the difference.
A paper on the research was recently published in the journal IEEE/ASMETransactionsonMechatronics.