Bhutan business bets on hazelnuts for farming future
Thimphu, BHUTAN—Farmer Pema Dema had never even heard of hazelnuts when she was first recruited to begin growing them on her land in Bhutan’s Thimphu region.
“I wondered what sort of a nut it was,” the 58-year-old told Agence France-Presse (AFP) with a laugh, looking out over the deep valley and terraced rice fields that unfold below her farm.
Now she has more than 140 hazelnut trees on the steep slope overlooking her home, and incorporates them into Bhutan’s traditional salted suja tea when guests visit.
Pema is one of thousands of Bhutanese growing hazelnuts as part of a social enterprise hoping to help subsistence farmers develop a high-value crop.
Mountain Hazelnuts began in 2009 as Bhutan’s first 100 percent foreign direct investment project in the agriculture sector.
High-value crop
More than 40 percent of Bhutan’s workforce is in agriculture, but production remains largely subsistence-based and is complicated by the country’s mountainous terrain.
Steep slopes can be impossible to plough and prone to topsoil washing away in heavy rain.
Hazelnuts seemed to offer a solution.
They grow well at high altitudes and on mountainsides, require no ploughing and their roots can fix soil in place.
Hazelnuts are also a high-value crop with a growing market, and the trees can produce for decades.
That was what attracted Pema, who has been farming for 40 years.
“I thought hazelnuts would be better in terms of fetching a better price,” she said.
“I hoped that it would benefit us in the future.”
Hard manual labor
Mountain Hazelnuts distributed its first saplings in 2011, over 145,000 plants to 800 growers.
Each recruit’s land was assessed for suitability and to ensure the crop was not displacing anything.
Growers can only use land that is fallow or degraded, with the goal of increasing Bhutan’s overall farming output and improving the country’s soil.
Dawa Dhendup, 82, was keen to put the trees on a steep stretch of his farm where he had struggled to grow potatoes.
“It was hard annual labor. But once the hazelnut trees are planted, it’s permanent.”
In sunglasses to protect his eyes after cataract surgery, he cut a sprightly figure as he harvested nuts from his 1,400 trees.
Learning curves
The company said it now has around 9,000 families growing hazelnuts on 6,000 acres of land across Bhutan.
But in some ways, the project is only just getting off the ground after a series of setbacks and learning curves.
A mismatch between production and pollinizer saplings in early planting delayed fruiting, and had to be solved by mass grafting of pollinizer plants into orchards.
The pandemic struck another blow, cutting farmers off from outreach officers who advise them on tending the crop.
And then there was climate change.
The hazelnut variety the company initially distributed needs around three months of cool temperatures to develop properly.
But climate change meant trees at lower altitudes were getting as little as six weeks of colder temperatures.
‘Patient capital’
The company again turned to grafting, using stock from Georgia that required fewer “chill hours” for plants growing between 1,600 and 2,400 meters.
In a best case scenario, hazelnut trees take several years to fruit and the various setbacks and extended waiting time meant some farmers simply abandoned the project.
But both Pema and Dawa said neighbors who had given up were now reconsidering.
