Kathmandu Make & Trade Private Limited

Profile / Brief Description :
Our Goal:
Hemp is a wonderful resource and indigenous to Nepal. Cannabis sativa, subsp. indica grows wild in the hills of Nepal from east to west, and has been harvested and used for cloth (as well as for food, fuel and medicine) around the Himalayan farmstead for generations, providing strong fabric for sacks, clothes, bags and ropes. Wild Himalayan Nettle is also harvested in the forests around the farms, spun into yarn then woven into cloth in the same way. Farming families traditionally make hemp and nettle yarn and weave the fabric in quiet periods in the farming year. If they are able to sell some of this yarn and cloth they can make a much-needed cash income. We want to be able to support these families in this traditional occupation by using Wild Nepali Hemp and Nettle for all our accessories, buying rolls of fabric from the farmers for a fair price every season.

We also aim to use Nepali Hemp for clothing as well as for accessories. Our aim is to find a low-cost way of spinning Nepali hemp into fine thread while giving as much employment as possible.

In the meantime we use Chinese hemp to weave fabric for our clothes. We mix this with organic cotton, nettle, bamboo and even banana fibre for unique and natural products. Other natural fibres we use are jute, silk, recycled silk and lokta (for paper).