SHV is a women‑led enterprise that works with local communities to build sustainable village economies through forest-based spices such as nutmeg, vanilla, kenari, and cloves.
The company operates in Maluku, Indonesia, which is home to some of the world’s most valuable spices.
However, limited market access and a lack of support to develop proper post-harvest practices have kept farmer incomes low pushed households toward extractive activities such as small‑scale timber cutting or mining.
Limited infrastructure, unpredictable pricing and inadequate support systems have also discouraged younger generations from staying in agriculture, eroding traditional knowledge and weakening stewardship of forest landscapes.
SHV is attempting to reverse this trajectory by rebuilding the spice value chain, starting with fair and transparent pricing.
“We partner with farmers and introduce a fair, transparent market mechanism. When we work with them, we give early price signals so they clearly know our price and can avoid the uncertainty that usually happens when harvest‑time prices suddenly plummet. In our case, the price signal stays consistent,” said Dessi Yuliana, founder and CEO of SHV.
The company partners with 11 farmer groups across seven villages in West Seram, supporting more than 700 farmers managing approximately 13,000 hectares under Social Forestry permits.
At the same time, the company encourages practices to improve productivity and quality, such as natural pest management and better post-harvest processes.
“We introduce very simple practices like pruning to increase the productivity of the trees. It’s not complicated technology but it such practices can increase the farmers productivity up to three times,” said Yuliana.
She told AgTechNavigator that it can be challenging to convince farmers to adopt these new techniques, so it introduced graded pricing systems where farmers receive higher payments when they meet improved standards.
Yuliana said this approach was essential as communities are unlikely to adopt new practices unless they can see the economic benefits.
This combination of demonstration and financial incentive is seen as essential for long‑term adoption, she said.
Retaining value in Maluku
Another important part of the firm’s model is establishing hubs that can serve surrounding forest areas.
“These hubs help aggregate commodities and allow us to deploy simple technologies such as solar drying systems. The technology is not complicated, farmers can easily adapt it, and it significantly improves quality,” said Yuliana.
Such hubs are crucial to keep value in Maluku, rather than sending raw materials to places such as Java and Surabaya where most of processing is done.
“We want to increase the value of the local area, not transfer it outside of Maluku,” said Yuliana.
The company is working to increase the economic value of the region with a new technology hub in the next two years.
Using a grant, the company will build this hub to utilise agriculture waste such as the nutmeg fruit which is mostly discarded and create a new income stream for the community in Maluku.
An investable model?
One of the major challenges SHV has faced is convincing investors that its social enterprise can be commercially viable.
“For a company like ours, finding a financier has been difficult. We are too operationally complex. We are on a small island, so the the logistical costs are high. Also, we deal with smallholder farmers which are deemed too risky,” said Yuliana.
Last August, Indonesia-based venture builder Terratai announced its investment into SHV, marking a huge milestone for the company.
“We believe that Indonesia’s Social Forestry Program plays a vital role in supporting local communities to sustainably manage their forest resources. SHV’s business model offers a rare opportunity to build on this initiative to drive finance to the forest stewards on the front lines of conservation – demonstrating the real economic value of keeping these critically important forests standing,” said Matt Leggett, Founder and CEO of Terratai.
Terratai supported SHV through Investing in Women (IW), an initiative by the Australian government.
It said it would “take an active role” to support SHV’s commercial operations and its long-term impact.
SHV’s activities have real social, economic and environmental implications: higher incomes, reduced waste, stronger forest stewardship and increased local value addition.
However, Yuliana acknowledged that it lacks the capacity to systematically measure its impact and highlighted the importance of developing a reliable way to measure its impact as it moves to scale.
