After spending Decades in working in traditional financial institution, Daniel Spitzer decided to start a social entrepreneurship called Mountain Hazelnuts in Himalayan country Bhutan.

It was indeed an innovative idea of using widespread Hazelnuts as a tool to change Socio-Economical condition of poor Bhutan farmers through a Sustainable start-up “Mountain Hazelnuts”.

Mountain Hazelnuts-Working

The working model of Mountain Hazelnuts is very simple, It provides hazelnut plants for free to a large number of small farmers in Bhutan. To ensure the quality of the hazelnuts, Mountain Hazelnuts team appointed field monitors including female employees who visits each farm to assist the farmers.

These field Monitors help farmers in selection of ideal soil condition for cultivation they also regularly inspect the growth of the plant in each stage till hazelnut tree starts to bear fruit.Due to buy back policy of Mountain Hazelnuts, the farmers sell nuts back to the company at a better price which sells it to Govt.

In early 2011, Mountain Hazelnuts had successfully established a nursery in rural eastern Bhutan with a capacity to produce millions of plants. The project aimed at providing 10 million trees over five years, which includes about 15 percent of overall Bhutan population in Inclusive growth model.

In 2015, Mountain Hazelnuts planned to add an additional 1.5 million trees, the project also targeted in distributing of over 3.5 million trees by a year.

The financial aid by Asian Development Bank (ADB) which invested $3 million in equity and $1.5 million in technical assistance as part of a $13.5 million deal for Mountain Hazelnuts Group’s expansion has created an opportunity for the innovative concept to grow in wider frame.

This small seed of social start up gradually attracted thousands of small farmers into hazelnut cultivation the success of the project is result of innovative business model of triple bottom line where People Planet and Profit goes hand-in-hand.

In present situation where along with the development, corporate social Responsibility (CSR) is considered as need for the hour, Mountain Hazelnuts changing Bhutan in Socio-Economical way through sustainable agriculture is truly appreciable.

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