Horizon Business Ventures Ltd

The intention for applying for The Elevate Prize is to up-scale our essential oils business and achieving the projected revenue of USD 600,000/annum by 2025. We would use the prize support to:

• Ramping up our collectors and collection process.  This includes:

Expanding geographical area of feed stock collections by 50,000 hectares of forest.

Strengthening community groups through training and support in best seed collection practices - which nuts to harvest, how to store them, habitat protection and integration into the business culture.

• Purchase and install necessary capital improvements at local facility to increase processing capacity. We will add more screw press (seed oil extraction) and distillation equipment’s (steam distillation).
• Diversify local markets and become export ready to major markets in the EU and the US, with necessary certifications and a go-to market strategy. We will acquire organic certifications and other possible schemes to improve the brand value of HBV product and obtain committed direct sales partners in niche markets.
• Plant more trees through domestication and agroforestry. We will work with a local government-funded reforestation scheme to help scale up reforestation efforts in public forests and on-farm with tree varieties that yield nuts.

HBV traces its origin when working among small-holder farmers, adjacent to Mount Kenya forest, with an NGO, Help Self Help Centre. We observed that despite our good intentions to bring solutions to food insecurity, poverty and forest degradation, the situation was becoming worse. Our "Aha!" moment came when through research (ethno-botanical survey), we identified a few forest species (with essential oils properties), that when sustainably managed could provide alternative livelihoods.

Our vision is a company that contributes to growing needs of a healthy global population (SDG3), and significantly makes a mark in the achievement of SDG 1, 5, 13, 15, 17.

HBV’s mission is to contribute to the healthy wellbeing of the global population, conservation of biodiversity and social-economic status of the rural population.

Our goal is to protect hundreds of hectares of forest in Kenya region and restore hundreds of more acres, in a regenerative and sustainable way through helping communities garner meaningful income from forest resources, instead of cutting trees down. We have proven that collecting nuts for essential oil pressing is an effective way to reduce poverty and preserve forests. Due to the economic value attached to nuts associated trees, households are increasingly planting them on-farm. 

The problem is increasing levels of illegal forest activities due to high poverty incidences as a result of the changing climate and disruption of traditional livelihood systems. In Kenya 3 million people depend directly on the forest. The World Bank estimates that about 240 million people live in predominantly forested ecosystems and that roughly a quarter of the world’s poor and 90% of the poorest depend substantially on forests for their livelihoods. Deforestation and degradation of forest ecosystems, in Kenya, is widely acknowledged and, despite official recognition deforestation rate continue to be 1.13% annually. Since the country’s forests provide the principal origin for water, at this rate the country will be a desert in only a little over a century. Over half the country’s population will be water insecure, and millions of hectares of natural carbon store will be forever put out of use in the global fight against climate change. The main driver for the persistence of deforestation, despite government and widespread community-led efforts, is crop value. Preserving the forests will be critical in the country fight towards climate change and poverty.

Our work is based on the notion that ‘what community values, they preserve. Before our intervention, illegal forest activities were the norm, despite government and other’s effort to contain the situation. Our model (3B) has demonstrated a clear linkage between biodiversity conservation and livelihoods improvements. For example, in Kabaru forest (13000ha), where 40% of the vegetation is dominated by cape chestnut trees, preliminary investigation done in 2019, by Kenya Forest Services(KFS)indicated 80% reduction in illegal forest activities (logging, charcoal burning) after 3 years of our intervention. The associated, economic benefits through NTFPs were key factors in reducing illegal activities. Further 261000 seedlings of economic wild species were planted on-farm.

The uniqueness of our work is that we are introducing new products in the market, from previously wasted but renewable forest resource (NTFPs), with multiplier effect on poverty, biodiversity, climate adaptation and mitigation. Ours is Circular Entrepreneurship in its truest form; we are creating value through regeneration and sustainability, through community-focused ecological use and stewardship. When locals experience income-generation and real business success from NTFPs, they stop cutting down their trees. Unlike other initiatives, 3Bs model success is determined by degree of community participation and associated benefits linked to conservation.

The first step in our intervention is an ethno-botanical survey, capturing community indigenous knowledge in relation with forest flora. This step is important not only in cost-effectiveness in securing valuable information but in ensuring further local participation in the project.

The second step is establishing a pilot oil extraction and sampling among the industry. This step ensures that there is market for the product, even before elaborate extraction mechanism are in place.

The third step is building the capacity of local institutional structures i.e.  Community groups, seed collection Centre’s in best collection practices, tree domestication and business culture. This is important to ensure their participation in the emerging essential oils value chain and conservation effort.

Hence our work is able to

• Make available natural products, to a population that is increasingly becoming healthy conscious, and where artificial ingredients have been proven deleterious to the body.
•  Create income and employment opportunities to women and youth in the rural context that uplifts their livelihoods and motivates them to participate in the conservation effort.
• Support the government effort in climate change mitigation (conservation, domestication) and adaptation (alternative income), as a tree based system is less sensitive to changing climate.