Mountain Hazelnuts ('MH') is a social enterprise partnering with over 12,000 farmer households and community groups to plant 10 million

hazelnut The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree and therefore includes any of the nuts deriving from species of the genus ''Corylus'', especially the nuts of the species ''Corylus avellana''. They are also known as cobnuts or filberts according t ...

trees across the Himalayan

Kingdom of Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

. MH is Bhutan's largest private sector employer, and endeavors to create shared value for rural mountain communities, shareholders, and the natural environment. According to a May 2010 article in Forbes, the Company "represents the first major foreign direct investment in Bhutan’s history." The Company provides young hazelnut trees, inputs, and technical assistance to rural smallholder farmers. Once the trees mature, the Company purchases hazelnuts harvested from their partner growers, which are then processed for export to premium international markets.

Partners

In 2015, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Asian Development Bank (ADB), and The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) joined the venture to offer a blended financing package – combining equity and non-traditional debt. In 2018, MH secured US$3 million in debt financing from Ceniarth. In 2019, MH secured a US$9 million long-term financing agreement with the United Nations-affiliated Land Degradation Neutrality Fund (LDN), managed by Mirova/

Natixis Natixis is a French corporate and investment bank created in November 2006 from the merger of the asset management and investment banking operations of ''Natexis Banques Populaires'' (Banque Populaire group) and ''IXIS'' (Groupe Caisse d'Epargne ...

External links

References

Hazelnuts Agriculture in Bhutan Companies of Bhutan Mongar District {{Bhutan-geo-stub