On December 12, 2025, a landmark event took place in Stary Sambor for the agrarian community of the Sambir Region. The head of the Lviv Agrarian Chamber Ihor Vuytsyk and the head of the Staro Sambir Territorial Community Ihor Trukhym signed an agreement on the implementation of the project “Protection of biodiversity of the cross-border territories of Ukraine and Poland from invasive populations of Heracleum hogweed” for the years 2025-2027.
The key agreements in the agreement are the co-financing of expenses from the local budget in the amount of 10% of the amount provided for by the project, for current and capital expenses. This includes the purchase and transfer of protective equipment to communities: reusable chemical-resistant suits, gloves, shoes, respirators, glasses, shields. For the technical support of the work, manual gasoline mowers, battery-operated sprayers for destroying hogweed, apparatus for washing suits and equipment for photodynamically active organic compounds (coumarin and furocoumarin) that hogweed accumulates during the growing season will be transferred. As well as all pre-agreed and purchased equipment for community capacity building, consisting of a modern tractor, road mower, plow and dump trailer. Thanks to the power (90 hp) and turbodiesel engine, the tractor will easily cope with difficult tasks, ensuring high performance and durability. Road mower with adjustable cutting height, floating structure, hydraulic tilt adjustment for working on slopes, roadsides at an angle of up to 60 degrees, will ensure effective destruction of hogweed on roadside areas. All this machinery and equipment will be transferred by the Lviv Agrarian Chamber to the ownership of the territorial community for its further use by the utility company in the performance of project tasks.
Along with this, scientific and practical recommendations will be provided, which are developed on the basis of existing methods of combating Sosnowski’s borscht in Ukraine and Poland in various landscape zones of the Polish-Ukrainian border. This will make it possible to start a systematic fight against a dangerous invasive plant.
It should be noted that the signing of the agreement took place in the process of discussing a comprehensive approach to solving the problem of the spread of borschivna in the border areas. In particular, an innovative solution was considered: the use of biomass of destroyed hogweed for biogas production. Biogas through the cogeneration module can provide electricity for autonomous operation, and the digestate after fermentation will become an organic fertilizer to restore the fertility of soils that have been damaged by borage. In this way, the waste from the destruction of the hogweed turns into a resource for the development of the biocircular economy. Ihor Vuytsyk emphasized that the implementation of such solutions will reduce the negative impact on the environment, save resources and create new models of the sustainable agricultural sector.
Professor Myroslav Malyovany – coordinator of the international project “Center of Excellence for Smart Agriculture and Circular Bioeconomy” and Zenova Bermes – president of the Association of Employers of Lviv region, who represented the developers of modular biogas plants of the new generation, joined the discussion.
The meeting in Stary Sambor was an example of how cooperation between the community, science and business can turn an environmental problem into an innovative solution for the development of rural areas.
Source. Lviv Agrarian Chamber