With the NEB_PROJECT "Hemp Information and Competence Centre with Experience Trails (IKHE)", a partnership comprising the town of Mücheln (Geiseltal), Merseburg University of Applied Sciences and the German Hemp Academy e. V., based in Mücheln, was launched on 7 July 2026. Hemp is being brought back into the public consciousness as a useful plant, including for use as a building and insulation material with improved properties in terms of moisture regulation and healthy indoor air quality. The plans include an experimental building constructed predominantly from hemp as a building material, alongside construction workshops and a range of discovery trails. On 7 July 2026, the project partners received their funding notifications, totalling around 3.8 million euros, from Gert Zender, State Secretary at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Tourism, Agriculture and Forestry of the State of Saxony-Anhalt. The project is 100 per cent funded by the European Just Transition Fund (JTF) as part of the state initiative "Together for a New European Bauhaus (NEB) #NeueBauhäusler".
Many people had come to celebrate the launch of the project that day, but also – and above all – to learn about hemp as a versatile all-rounder and the plans of the project partners. And it became clear that industrial hemp, as a sustainable resource, offers more than just high economic potential. The plant also scores highly in environmental terms. This is because, when grown as part of a crop rotation, hemp improves soil quality, requires no pesticides and – particularly important in times of climate change – needs comparatively little water. Hemp is currently grown across around 230 hectares in the region – with predictable selling prices for farmers.
The ‘Hemp Information and Competence Centre’ in Mücheln, funded by the EU as a NEB_PROJECT, is to be built by the town of Mücheln as an experimental hemp structure – a timber building with a high proportion of hemp. The German Hemp Academy e. V. and Merseburg University of Applied Sciences are supporting the project with their expertise and scientific guidance, not least to share knowledge with both specialists and the general public. Because that is what the centre will be all about: using a specific building and a specific product to educate people about sustainable material cycles and value chains, with a wide range of opportunities for use and practical applications for one of the oldest crops used by humankind: hemp. Mücheln is making history for the future.
“Out of coal, into hemp.” Under this motto, the members of the Hanffaser Geiseltal eG cooperative have been working since their foundation in 2022 to bring people together and drive change in the former lignite-mining region around Lake Geiseltal. The cooperative is an integral partner to the NEB_PROJECT in the supply of raw materials. Its headquarters, located in a former locomotive workshop in the Stöbnitz district of Mücheln, lies opposite the site on which the “Hemp Information and Competence Centre with Experience Trails” is to be built as an experimental structure by 2028. It is a city-owned property in the town of Mücheln, not far from Strandallee, intended to develop facilities for residents and visitors.
