Ukraine’s largest industrial hemp production enterprise, Ma’rijany Hemp Company, launched a processing plant in Rijany, Zhytomyr Region.
Ma’rijany Hemp Company has launched production after two years of construction and investments worth $27 million dollars. The company aims to produce hemp fiber for both the European textiles market and domestic use.
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Total production capacity is approximately 14,000 tons of hemp stalks per year, Ma’Rijany Hemp Company wrote in its press release.
The company will process hemp stalks to produce long fiber, primarily used in high-quality textiles and technical fabrics. The processed fiber is currently intended for export, but the company plans to bring part of the finished yarn back to the Ukrainian market to support the growth of the local fashion industry.
The plant will also produce short fiber for nonwovens, paper, construction and insulation materials. In addition, it will manufacture products such as shives (hurds) – environmentally friendly material for hempcrete, chipboard, bioplastics and animal bedding.
In a previous article, Kyiv Post described how the story of Ma’rijany Hemp Company began in May 2022 when Director Andriy Mykytiv was looking for 700 hectares of land to rent and a large chunk of commercial property for the future factory. This was just one month after Irpin was liberated from Russian forces.
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To launch the business, Ma’Rijany Hemp Company rebuilt the abandoned Volodar-Volynskyi flax mill in the Zhytomyr region.
In 2024, the company sowed 890 hectares of hemp for processing, and by 2025 expanded the area of crops to 1,200 hectares. This makes Ma’Rijany a leader in both Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe in terms of industrial hemp cultivation and processing volumes.
The company aims to revive the bast crop industry and also boost the regional economy of Zhytomyr, aiming to strengthen regional economic development that ties in with Ukraine’s roots. Over a century ago, hemp was the main material used in fabrics and parachute manufacturing before cotton took the lead.
“In the second half of the 20th century, Ukraine was among the global leaders in industrial hemp cultivation, with over 150,000 hectares of crops and more than 40 large-scale primary processing plants. However, after the 1990s, the industry nearly vanished,” Ma’Rijany Hemp Company wrote in its press release.
As part of a wider development, Ma’Rijany Hemp Company has established the Ma’Rijany Industrial Park which aims to attract businesses involved in industrial hemp processing and is expected to create over 700 new jobs.
“Its activities will encourage local farmers to cultivate industrial hemp and support the development of a sustainable industrial hemp ecosystem in Ukraine,” the press release said.
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