Yerba mate: Government said DNU is not in force and INYM can set prices

The landing of the Secretary of Industry and Productive Development of the Nation in Misiones has brought some certainty and peace of mind to herb producers. In a meeting, Juan Alberto Pazo He explained that the decree that takes away the power to set the reference prices of the raw material from the National Yerba Mate Institute (INYM) is not in force; and that the engineer’s appointment resisted Daniele Notta As president of that organization, he remains under scrutiny.

Surprisingly, Pazo has become the interlocutor of the yerba growers who at the end of January began the cessation of the harvest and have already carried out two attacks on tractors to demand a 100% recomposition of the price of the green leaf and yerba mate. The meeting with the producers took place a few days after the Secretary of Bioeconomy, Fernando Vilella, had canceled a meeting with a delegation that went to Buenos Aires to explain the key role of the INYM and the need for it to continue to be arbiter until when it comes to setting minimum prices for the first links in the production chain.

Pazo also met with governor Hugo Passalacqua and Misiones’ agriculture minister, Facundo López Sartori; to whom he clarified that “market deregulation is clearly a national policy”, but that a way will be found to ensure that the search for a more competitive market does not leave small and medium-sized game producers out of the picture, who are the majority in the herbal economy.

According to herbalists, the history of deregulation of this pillar of the economy has been catastrophic. It happened during the presidency of Carlos Menem and ended with hundreds of producers camping with their tractors around the Government House, in Posadas, to force the creation of the National Yerba Mate Institute.

Since prices must be set unanimously, These values ​​have been set several times by the Nation’s Agriculture through a premium based on a cost grid prepared by the Institute.

Also present at Pazo’s meeting with the INYM board of directors were López Sartori; the undersecretary of Yerbateros Affairs, Julio Petterson; the provincial deputies Juan José Szychowski (last president of the Institute) and Miguel Nuñez; as well as producers and representatives of Yerbatera cooperatives.

The official gave the green light to the pricing session scheduled for next week because the DNU will only come into force when its regulations are published.

The council must start the discussion on production costs, but industrialists and Corrientes representatives have already announced that they will not participate because they believe the DNU deregulation is in force.

Pazo told the herbalists that in case the price of green leaf and pistachio is re-established, the national government will set the reference values.

Regarding the appointment of engineer Daniel Notta as president of the INYM board of directors, Pazo said that it is still being analyzed despite Vilella officially announcing it five days ago.

At the end of the day of meetings, Pazo stated that “we come to the province of Misiones to manage the requests of the producers, which is why we believe that it is very important to generate more and more exchange spaces to learn about the peculiar situation of each province with respect to the production processes ”.