Book excerpt: What is wrong with the good old coconut palm? Nothing by itself, after all its the 'Kalpa Vriksha' of the state of Kerala that draws it very name from. But the humble palm happens to be the most wronged among all natural fibre crops in India. Reasons range from its wrong agricultural classification as an' oil crop of horticultural origin;' prioritisation as a food crop at the expense of its bio industrial credentials; total neglect of the husk that supplies coir fibre and pith to an industry employing lakhs of impoverished labour; to lack of R&D that would have helped raise its stakes in the state's agricultural economy. This holds a mirror to the situation prevailing even in the 93 growing countries, and calls for a serious probe on how stakeholders have chosen to look the other way even as the crop began to rot in India all these long years.