Mountain Hazelnuts
Mountain Hazelnuts
Developing a women-focused inclusive hazelnut agriculture value chain in Bhutan.
BCTA MEMBERSHIP STATUS
Active
SECTOR
Agriculture, Food & Beverage
HEADQUARTERS
Bhutan
REGION OF INITIATIVE
Asia & Pacific
SDG CONTRIBUTION
RELATED NEWS
The Impact Goal
Mountain Hazelnuts joined Business Call to Action in April 2017 and committed to integrate 7,500 women-headed smallholder farming families into its value chain while training at least 4,000 women in financial literacy, helping at least 75 percent of them to open bank accounts, and directly employing 500 Bhutanese women.
In 2021, Mountain Hazelnuts renewed its membership for its inclusive business and made a commitment to integrate 15,000 hazelnut farmers from Bhutan in its value chain. It also aims to create 400 direct full-time staff employment opportunities, and 350 direct part-time jobs for Community Lead Growers (CLGs) who are experienced hazelnut growers in their communities by 2024.
The Market Gap
Poverty in Bhutan is largely a rural phenomenon with 62% of the population living in rural and agriculture primarily consisting of subsistence farming. 11.9% of the rural population lives in poverty compared to the 0.8% in urban areas in 2017. Rural conditions have improved considerably through government programs over the years, but farmers have few opportunities to diversify their income.
Although indigenous to Bhutan, hazelnuts have neither been grown commercially nor consumed in the country. As the second-largest tree-nut crop having global value, the demand for Hazelnuts is growing within traditional European buyers and is rapidly expanding to new markets such as in Asia.
The Business Solution
As part of its business model, Mountain Hazelnuts takes a holistic approach to address six overarching needs: Household income generation, employment, community development, cultural preservation, local ecosystems, and global climate change. To meet the market gap and achieve its targets, the company controls the entire value chain, from producing tissue culture to planting trees in collaboration with farmers to processing and exporting the nuts. Mountain Hazelnuts hopes to satisfy a growing demand for high quality sustainably sourced products in leading international markets.
As of 2021, Mountain Hazelnuts’ operations has grown to cover more than 6 million trees, has cultivated by more than 11,000 hazelnut growers and community groups (e.g., monasteries and cooperatives) across 19 out of 20 districts in Bhutan. There is a growing demand from farmers to cultivate hazelnuts which the company aims to meet and to have 10 million trees cultivated by 15,000 hazelnut growing families and community groups.
About Mountain Hazelnut Venture Private Limited: Established in 2008, Mountain Hazelnut Venture Private Limited (MH) is a social enterprise producing premium quality hazelnuts in Bhutan. The company creates shared value for rural mountain communities, shareholders, and the environment. Mountain Hazelnuts provides young hazelnut trees, agricultural inputs, and technical assistance to support smallholder farmers as part of a long-term partnership and purchases harvested hazelnuts, which are processed for export to international markets.