Will flax growing be revived in Volyn?

TO RUIN A BUSINESS, NO WITS ARE NEEDED

Today, the open joint-stock company "Kamin-Kashyrskyi Flax Mill" is perhaps the only processing enterprise that has managed to preserve its material base. At first glance, it looks like a gigantic wasteland occupying an area of 12 hectares. And only the dust-covered equipment in the workshops reminds one that over 500 workers once worked here. In the days of its heyday, the plant fully took upon itself the cares of the town: it built a sewage system, treatment facilities, a kindergarten for one hundred and forty places, two buildings for workers with 90 and 45 apartments. In the mid-eighties, the enterprise processed the most flax straw in Volyn – 12,500 tons. Long-stemmed flax was brought here not only from all of Volyn, but also from Lviv region and Ivano-Frankivsk region.

The plant had its own branch in Lyuboml district. However, the leadership of that district raised the issue of tax payment. Supposedly, the plant works on our territory, but the money goes to the treasury of Kamin-Kashyrskyi. So the branch became an independent enterprise, which stopped production a few years later. According to the acting chairman of the board of OJSC "Kamin-Kashyrskyi Flax Mill" Hryhorii Naulyk, the decline of the flax industry began once the infrastructure of external markets for product sales was destroyed. After all, ninety percent of flax fiber went for export to Russia, Poland, France, Belgium, Italy. This was done through the central structure "Zovnisheksport," which was located in Moscow. After the collapse of the Union, no one even thought of creating something similar in Kyiv. Thus export routes automatically closed for Ukraine.

"We still hauled flax fiber to Russia for some time," recounts Hryhorii Fedorovych, "but then customs rates began to rise, and Ukraine was flooded with disposable products that began to be brought to us from America and China. The bed sheets on trains were disposable. We were assured that this was very convenient – no need to wash, you use it and throw it away. It was simply profitable for someone to have this useless foreign product displace ours."

At the same time, the decline of enterprises that produced fabric began. The best in Ukraine, the Rivne Flax Combine, which was famous for its products, was forced to cease production. The same fate befell the Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, and Odesa enterprises, which produced not only fabrics for light industry but also for heavy industry and seafaring. They simply had no market for their products. Warehouses were piled high. Flax mills brought flax fiber and in return received towels, bed sheets, and tablecloths, with which they paid their workers' wages. The processing enterprises had nothing with which to pay for energy carriers. As a result, the flax industry, deprived of any attention from the state and of the possibility to survive, simply choked and began to decline.

In the spring of 1997, the Kamin-Kashyrskyi enterprise also stopped. It struggled for survival for a long time. For some time it leased equipment from the Smolensk Flax Combine and was the only one in Ukraine producing "rovnytsia." The enterprise also built a workshop for the production of hemp-pulp boards, but it was never destined to start working. Then it went into cooperation with the Novovolynsk cotton-spinning factory, which had problems with raw materials. The plant installed a carding machine, through which it passed the fiber and made it such that the factory could use it in its production. But subsequently this cooperation also ceased. People still did not want to settle accounts. Everyone kept waiting for changes for the better. As Fedir Hryhorovych recounted, the last twenty-four employees were laid off only last year. To this day, the plant still lists eleven people on maternity leave, an accountant, and several watchmen.

THE ZHYTOMYR PEOPLE TOOK A BUSINESSLIKE APPROACH

The crisis in the flax industry lasted for several years. But, as they say, nature abhors a vacuum. The first to return to flax cultivation were the Zhytomyr people. Today, not only do almost all processing enterprises operate there, but three years ago a new Brusyliv flax mill appeared. Why so? They say wealthy investors came who were able to foresee that flax has a great future. Within two years, almost all the equipment from Volyn's plants migrated to Zhytomyr region. The enterprise "Emilchyno-flax" alone bought forty-five flax combines in Volyn and Lviv region. One of the partially complete lines of the Kamin-Kashyrskyi plant also ended up at the Brusyliv flax mill. It had just been described by the executive service, because the enterprise could not settle its debts, so the Zhytomyr people seized the line. Another one was bought in Rivne region. That is how the plant started working. And they began, practically, from scratch. They leased 400 hectares of land, sowed flax, and harvested one and a half thousand tons of flax straw. They delivered the raw material for processing to the Korostyshiv enterprise. They became convinced that the business was profitable, so they set about building their own plant.

Several years ago, state officials also realized that during the turmoil they had lost one of the strategic industries, and began to take steps that would promote its revival. Thus a Cabinet of Ministers resolution "On Support of Domestic Flax and Hemp Production" appeared. Through the structure "Ukrlonovolokno" one could purchase equipment for processing straw. The people of Zhytomyr region and Chernihiv region did not disdain to take advantage of this either. The same enterprise "Emilchyno-flax" managed to purchase fifty tractors, eighty trailers, forty-five combines, seven seeders, six disc harrows, two dryers, four T-150 tractors in two years! The plant itself leases two thousand hectares of land. Another five hundred hectares are cultivated by agricultural enterprises and farmers. Long-stemmed flax is a high-cost crop. For instance, in Emilchyno, at least two thousand hryvnias are invested per hectare of flax. The plant pays 510 hryvnias per ton of straw, and sells long fiber at 1,700 dollars (short fiber – from 400 to 700 dollars).

POLISSIAN SILK IS HAULED TO CHINA

Only ten percent of the flax that is grown in Ukraine today is processed by our enterprises. Ninety percent of flax fiber is hauled to China, which also buys raw material from France, Germany, Belarus, and Russia. As Hryhorii Naulyk noted, the Chinese are willing to buy Ukrainian fiber in unlimited quantities, because it is high-quality. Several Zhytomyr plants have already joined together and now have their own warehouse base in China. So the Chinese don't even need to come to Ukraine to buy our fiber. True, they evaluate it not by grades, as is customary here, but pay more attention to elasticity. The Zhytomyr people accumulate a batch of fiber worth at least 250,000 dollars and send it to China. They also suggest that Volyn producers join in the future. For such a batch they are paid one and a half times more than for small deliveries.

Flax products, which are very popular and expensive on the Ukrainian market today, are quite scarce. And, as Hryhorii Naulyk explained to me, they can only conditionally be called linen, because that fabric contains only seven percent flax, the rest being artificial fibers.

AN INVESTOR HAS BEEN FOUND IN VOLYN TOO

When flax growing began to revive in Zhytomyr, Chernihiv, and Kyiv regions, enterprising investors also visited the Kamin-Kashyrskyi flax mill. Among them was a native of Lyubeshiv district, now a resident of Lutsk, Ivan Kobak. He came, looked around, went on a tour in Zhytomyr, and made a decision to revive the flax mill. He bought up part of the shares. He invested his own funds to pay off wage arrears, bought the main workshop and equipment. On the basis of the plant he created LLC "Kamin-flax," which today is engaged in repairing technological lines for processing straw. Three of them have been preserved at the plant. Another three lines are suitable for processing scutching waste. Thanks to such equipment, 7-8 thousand tons of raw material can be processed within a year. However, the main problem that the plant is now trying to solve is finding flax straw. The acting chairman of the board of OJSC "Kamin-Kashyrskyi Flax Mill" Hryhorii Naulyk, who has worked in the district since 1983, built this flax-processing enterprise and, as they say, put his soul into it, today does everything to revive flax growing. He pounds the thresholds of the district leadership, agitates agricultural producers, and even became the initiator of a trip to Zhytomyr region to convince those who do not believe in the revival of flax growing that this is a profitable and entirely real matter.

"Our more powerful farms, which are still preserved, namely in Pnivno, Toboly, Novi Chervyshcha, Nuino, Buzaky," recounts Hryhorii Naulyk, "after visiting Zhytomyr, took upon themselves the obligation to sow at least fifty hectares of flax next year. I am now drafting the contracts that we will conclude with them. I think that our enterprise will also lease land. We will help the farms with fertilizers and seeds and try together to show that we can do something."

Flax growers today have begun to feel real support from the state. For instance, this year they received 300 hryvnias of subsidy for each hectare sown with flax. Next year they promise a subsidy already in the amount of one thousand hryvnias per hectare. Fifty-percent subsidies are now also received by those farms engaged in growing elite flax seed. To support flax producers, in Zhytomyr deputies allocated substantial funds from the regional budget.

As the director of the Volyn Institute of Agro-Industrial Production, Volodymyr Sklyanchuk, recounted, the Institute together with the department of agro-industrial development developed a program "Flax of Volyn 2005-2010" back at the beginning of the year, the implementation of which would help bring the industry out of crisis. However, it has still not been approved at the session of the regional council. According to the department of agro-industrial development of the regional state administration, in Volyn this year there were only 320 hectares under flax crops. Over 200 hectares of flax were grown by farms of Kovel district, which deliver straw to the local flax mill. It barely survives and needs reconstruction, but still processes the small portion of raw material that comes from Volyn producers. More than one hundred hectares of flax were sown in Turiisk district. A hectare and a half dozen – in Lutsk and Rozhyshche districts. In total, over one hundred tons of seed are expected to be harvested. However, this is not enough for flax growing to be able to gain momentum. Therefore, according to Hryhorii Naulyk, there is an agreement with Zhytomyr producers, who promise to provide high-quality flax seed to all who wish to grow flax. As for the cost of seed, it is not cheap. For example, elite seed costs 6-8 thousand hryvnias per ton, first and second reproduction seed – 3 thousand hryvnias.

Telling us about the former glory of the enterprise and showing us the workshops and equipment, Hryhorii Naulyk seemed to fairly glow with joy that soon these premises would no longer be a deaf crypt, that the lines would work again, people would bustle about, and fiber production would begin. So isn't it worth all of us together taking up this matter?

Olena DUDKEVYCH