INTERVIEW: Andriy Mykytiv is founder and CEO of Ma’Rijany Hemp Company, Ukraine’s largest industrial hemp processing enterprise and one of the largest hemp fiber projects in Central and Eastern Europe. Ma’Rijany operates a vertically integrated model that includes cultivation, primary processing and development of downstream industrial applications. The company launched a €27 million processing facility in the Zhytomyr region in 2025, focused on long textile fiber, short fiber and hemp shivs for construction, bioplastics and other industrial uses. Mykytiv is also co-owner and deputy CEO of K.Tex, a Ukrainian nonwovens manufacturer.
HT: Your project began before the war. What happened when the invasion started?
AM: We did not deploy a single dollar before the full-scale invasion. We only had the concept. The capital deployment happened deep into the war, and it was financed entirely by equity investors.
HT: What is the biggest challenge of operating during wartime?
AM: Transport is not the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge is people. Ukraine has lost about 10 million people through migration, roughly a third of the population. Competition for labor is fierce, and attracting qualified workers is a task that cannot be underestimated.
HT: Why did you decide to focus primarily on long fiber?
AM: Originally, the idea was to make a vertically integrated link to our nonwovens business. My fear at the time was that the project was going to be too big in scale, potentially more than US$10 million of investment, and as a single company we could not afford that. So we were looking for a way to deliver hemp fiber at a smaller scale. In 2021, it seemed that going for long fiber would allow us to keep the scale smaller while selling short fiber as a byproduct and selling the long fiber on the open market.
HT: What do you do with the short fiber?
AM: Nowadays, our primary target is to sell it for yarn spinning, specifically for semi-wet and dry open-ring spinning.
HT: What markets do you see for hemp shivs (hurd)?
AM: We produce very high-quality, dust-free shivs. They’re somewhat darker than products you might find in the U.S. because we use field retting, but that doesn’t make the product inferior. It simply means we have to explain to customers why the color is different.
HT: How important are shivs to your business model?
AM: Long fiber dominates the business, probably by an 80-to-20 margin over shivs.
HT: Why do you harvest before the seed matures?
AM: We harvest in late July or early August, before the seed germinates, and collect the crop a few weeks later, after humidity and temperature have completed the retting process. If you wait for full seed maturity and winter retting, the shivs and the fiber deteriorate. For high-quality yarn, that’s an important factor, and you won’t be able to spin 100% hemp yarn from that material.
HT: Where are you selling your fiber today?
AM: We are targeting the European market, the spinners that already have long hemp fiber in their production portfolios. We’re also looking at markets in Asia, particularly India, and we’ve started working directly with the U.S. market as well.
HT: Have you been able to sell into China?
AM: We have. There are at least three or four big companies in China looking for these types of fibers. There are companies in the U.S. looking for the same thing—textile makers producing 100% yarns for premium denim products.
HT: Is that still a niche market?
AM: At this stage it’s rather a niche market. Although we sound like a big producer, operating about 2,000 hectares, in terms of product volume, we’re still not a large supplier.
HT: How much hemp are you growing?
AM: This year we are farming 2,600 hectares. Of that, 300 hectares are designated for seed production for next year’s planting, and the rest is for fiber.
HT: Which European countries represent your strongest markets?
AM: France, Belgium, Italy, Poland and Germany. Those are the potential markets. That doesn’t mean we’ve sold to all of them.
HT: Which downstream sectors do you see driving demand?
AM: We are far upstream in the value chain, so my knowledge of downstream developments is limited. But I see leading brands becoming increasingly concerned about their public image and sustainability commitments. Cotton is under severe sustainability pressure, and renewable plant fibers like flax and hemp offer the promise of replacing part of the roughly 25 million tons of cotton consumed every year. Even capturing a fraction of that market would provide a huge boost.
HT: How did you become involved in industrial hemp?
AM: It started as a quest for self-dependency in raw materials, something that became even more important after the war started. Ukraine doesn’t have oil or cotton, but historically its textile industry was built around flax and hemp, and that entire upstream chain once existed here.
HT: You originally wanted to be only a processor. Why did that change?
AM: We wanted to become a processor because our experience is in manufacturing and B2B business. But as the project unfolded, we had to make difficult decisions, financially and operationally. Building the plant was already a major challenge, and expanding simultaneously into several additional businesses added a level of complexity that is difficult to comprehend.
HT: Does vertical integration matter?
AM: In Asia there is such a high degree of vertical integration that it becomes an important factor in capturing margins. When one chain produces the raw material and also delivers the final product, it has enormous bargaining power. That’s not unique to hemp—it’s common across textiles and many other industries.
HT: What does Ukraine’s downstream textile infrastructure look like today?
AM: We still have a versatile network of sewing factories and four fabric-producing factories, along with some yarn production. The seven largest yarn spinning and fabric companies disappeared after the collapse of the upstream value chain, but there are now significant efforts to rebuild the complete textile chain in Ukraine because we recognize the importance of having our own supply chain.
HT: Your investment has grown significantly. How was it financed?
AM: At the moment, we’re above €35 million. We brought in partners—not all of them living in Ukraine, some have been abroad for decades—but all united by the desire to make a meaningful impact in Ukraine. As a single company, we couldn’t deliver a project of this scope, so we found partners who were ready to move forward with us.
HT: How many people do you employ?
AM: At the moment, we have slightly more than 200 employees across all the subsidiary companies we have created, while expanding up the value chain.
HT: If a major international investor walked into your office tomorrow, where would you tell them to invest?
AM: Product development is a real gap. The way I see it, the margins are all the way upstream and all the way downstream. Everything in the middle gets squeezed. From a purely financial point of view, the two ends of the value chain are the most attractive.
HT: How important was hemp historically in Ukraine?
AM: Today we operate a state-of-the-art primary processing facility, but 40 or 50 years ago Ukraine had about 100 such facilities—46 large ones and around 60 smaller ones. At one point Ukraine had 280,000 hectares of flax and more than 160,000 hectares of hemp, making it a true agricultural powerhouse.
HT: Ukraine pioneered low-THC hemp varieties. How did that happen?
AM: In the 1970s, as a response to international pressure following the Geneva Convention, Ukraine developed non-THC hemp varieties. By 1982, it had become the first country in the world to develop a fully reliable non-THC variety, which was later exported and became one of the backbone varieties used by other countries to develop industrial hemp.
HT: What role could Ukraine play in Europe’s hemp economy?
AM: Ukraine has a chance to become an agricultural powerhouse again, as it already is in food production. There are no significant subsidies for Ukrainian agriculture and yet its products remain competitive. If we’re looking for a meaningful way to make hemp price-competitive and penetrate markets, Ukraine is a very good place to do it.
HT: Ten years from now, what would success look like for Ma’Rijany?
AM: One big success has already happened: we launched a project of this scale after roughly three years of development. Looking ten years ahead is unrealistic because the course of the war will play a major role, and there is simply too much uncertainty for Ukraine and for the world.
