The National Institute of Yerba Mate (INYM) will be reduced to an agency for the promotion and development of an activity that is a pillar of the Misiones economy. The DNU signed by President Javier Milei eliminated the power to establish reference prices on the basis of a cost gridS.
Less than 24 hours after knowing the decision of the president, the provincial deputy and leader of the Frente Renovador de Misiones, Carlos Roviraused his social networks to communicate that “on the basis of the yerba mate law, I will promote the creation of the Yerba Mate Missionary Institute (IMYM to defend the economy and profitability of our small and medium yerba mate producers).
He added that this institution will defend “quality, profitably sustained growth and a fair price for all, protecting the weakest sectors from the demands of oligopolies”. And he stressed that “the mother product of the Tierra Colorada is not in question, and we missionaries are sovereign in taking care of it.”
For his part, Ricardo Maciel, member of the INYM council representing the Province of Misiones, argued that the changes announced by the National Government in article 164 of the mega-decree “it repeals the article which is almost the founding reason of the INYM, namely the fixing of prices”. And he added that it won’t be possible”look for measures that help balance supply and demand”, such as the application of quotas for new plantations.
The decree, to a large extent, takes the business back to the 1990s, when the Yerba Mate Regulatory Commission (CRYM) was eliminated and primary producers saw prices collapse to historic levels. This situation led to a tractor-trailer camping in Posadas for more than a month to force the creation of the INYM, an organization that began operating in 2022.
Maciel recalled that the Institute was born “because the producers had no organization to help them negotiate the price. This decree wants to help industries purchase raw materials and sell them without further controls,” she explained.
Article 164 establishes that “the objectives of the INYM will be to promote and strengthen the development of the production, transformation, industrialization, marketing and consumption of yerba mate and its derivatives in its different forms of consumption and uses, seeking to protect the competitive nature of yerba mate and its derivatives in its different forms of consumption and use. the industry. “.
In another paragraph eliminates mandatory registration of producers, processors, harvesters, millers, fractionators, importers, exporters and any other participant in the activity. It also leaves aside the promotion of associative forms of primary producers, in particular cooperatives.
The elimination of section R of Article 4 of the Law has the greatest impact on business. He is the one who established that the Institute should set the reference values for the green leaf and the courtada, i.e. the dry grass, without grinding, twice a year – in March and September.
Another point that irritates producers is that the INYM is deprived of the power to implement measures that rebalance supply and demand… and to establish with the Ministry of Agriculture measures that limit production in case of excess supply of raw materials .
The decree also repeals the article establishing that the funds are the property of the INYM and cannot pass to the National Treasury. And which could only be used to finance the objectives proposed by the Institute.
As regards the transport of grass without mandatory tax, the new rules are more stringent, since tax evasion is added to the sanctions established by Article 28 of the INYM. The new article specifies that “the sanctions provided for in article 28 of this law will be applied to sales of goods carried out without the aforementioned stamps, in addition to those that the legislation applies regarding tax evasion”. The original law provides for the confiscation of the counterfeit product for its destruction and heavy fines.
Last year in Misiones and Corrientes, the only two yerba mate producing provinces in Argentina, 829,237,261 kilos of green leaves were collected. The country requested 275,809,497 kilos, while another 40,304,006 kilos were exported to more than 50 countries.
In the area there are approximately 12,500 green leaf producers who pour the raw material into 49 cooperatives and 200 dryers.. The process is completed with approximately 100 mills. The harvest alone involves the work of around 15,000 tareferos. For next year the Institute had foreseen gradual increases in the price of the stamps that parcels must carry.
If we take the total kilos sold on the domestic market in 2022, The INYM collection will exceed $6,000,000, funds that the National Treasury will now be able to use.
Source: Clarin
