For producers from Misiones, “deregulation of yerba mate is harmful”

More than 300 producers, eleven mayors and several ministers and deputies met in the Misiones city of Enchanted Leap for the possible creation of a provincial body that regulates the price of yerba mate, which collapsed after the DNU of President Javier Milei last December.

At the meeting, it was agreed that deregulation was detrimental to the productive sector. “In February of this year, the rate was 370 pesos and it was on the rise. Today, the green rate is between 230 and 250 pesos, but with payment terms of between 30 and 120 days,” said the Minister of Agriculture and Provincial Production, Facundo López Sartori.

“Do producers want an organization, institute or commission to regulate the price of green and dried leaves?” The question was asked by López Sartori. By majority vote, the assembly accepted the proposal. Some producers proposed that the province be the regulator, others that the National Institute of Yerba Mate -something impossible according to the political position of the national Government-, another group proposed that Misiones create the Yerba Mate Missionary Institute to set a reference price for green leaves and seasoned yerba mate, as proposed by the First Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies, Carlos Rovira.

In that line was the Former National Deputy Hector “Cacho” Barbaroof the party Agrarian and Socialwho proposed the creation of a Collection Center or that progress be made in setting a minimum price for green and dried leaves, which would allow small producers in Misiones to “live with dignity.” “There are more than 12,500, but there are many who deliver illegally and that number should be around 18,000,” he said.

The initial draft sets a reference price defined in a similar way to tea, with tax incentives for the dryers that pay the maximum value. The aim is for the scheme to be ready for the start of the 2025 harvest.

Although the summer harvest season for production begins on December 1, “this year is already lost. Even more so when the national government celebrates the effects of deregulation,” said a producer from the central area of ​​the province of Misiones.

The report

This Saturday, the Minister Federico Sturzzenegger released a report on the impact of DNU 7023. More specifically, the “Impact Assessment Unit” of the deregulatory portfolio calculated that in real terms (that is, discounting inflation), the Average price of yerba mate fell 25.4% compared to December 2023. “The drop in the shelves does not compare with the collapse in the price of raw materials, which reached 370 pesos in February of this year, to the current 230 or 250, paid in up to 120 days, with a drop of between 32 and 37 percent, with an accumulated inflation of over 90 percent. Today many producers barely earned enough to survive,” Economis specifies in a report.

Sturzenegger’s report confuses some concepts. The statement from his ministry indicates that the National Institute of Yerba Mate (INYM) “It had the power to establish, through semiannual resolutions, the minimum values ​​of the raw material of yerba, which included both the ton of green leaf and the ton of dried yerba mate,” which the government of President Javier Milei eliminated, through DNU 70/2023, the power of the INYM to establish them. According to the deregulatory ministry, “this measure allowed producers to freely set the sale price of the product.” This sentence is, however, false: with deregulation, producers never set the sale price. In fact, they asked for 505 pesos to start the harvest and today they are paying one hundred pesos and the rest in 120 days, they mentioned at the meeting.

Exports offset the decline in the domestic market

In another order, the monthly report prepared by the National Institute of Yerba Mate (INYM) reveals that in August, yerba mate shipments abroad totaled 5,288,010 kilos, totaling 28,309,879 kilos between January and August of this year; that is, 11.4% more than shipments in the same period in 2023.

In contrast, the domestic market, statistical data indicate that in August the volume of yerba mate leaving mills for the Argentine market was 24,997,971 kilos. The sum of the period January – August yields a total of 169,479,218 kilos of yerba mate leaving mills. Domestic consumption shows an accumulated fall of 10.53 percent, and remains the lowest of the decade.

The record of raw material entering the dryers indicates that 149,100,944 kilos of green leaves were processed during the month of August, giving a cumulative total of 888,745,976 kilos for the eight months of the current year.

It is worth remembering that the harvest calendar is divided into three stages: heavy harvest (April to September), harvest suspension period (October and November) and summer harvest or “zafriña” (December to March).