The National Institute of Yerba Mate (INYM) was unable to advance in the treatment of the reference prices of the raw material due to the absence of representatives of the mills and the Province of Corrientes. The discussion has moved to February 29, but everything indicates this This time too, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Nation will establish it through a prize the values that will govern for the busy harvest season, which extends until October.
The board members who made the mistake had already announced it They would not validate the INYM session because they believe that the presidential decree that took away the Institute’s power to fix the prices of green leaves and dry grass, without grinding (canchada), is in force.
The absences of Germán Horrisberger and Joaquín Comas, representatives of the mills; and Claudio Anselmo, director of Corrientes, have generated discomfort especially among small farmers, who are asking for an urgent price recomposition after the strong devaluation last December which left them in the red.
Representatives of producers, dryers, cooperatives, the Misiones government and rural workers did not hide their frustration at opening a two-week waiting period. In between there will be contacts to try to bring those absent back to the negotiating table and it will be possible to analyze the cost grid on which the sector is based to define prices.
The dryers of Misiones They are already paying 300 pesos per kilo for green leaves, 60 pesos more than the value set in November last year by the nation’s Ministry of Agriculture. In Andresito, after the herbalists stopped harvesting, the industrial sector agreed to pay 370 pesos per kilo in cash and to increase the value by 20% monthly until it reached the 500 pesos requested by primary producers. From then on the adjustment for inflation will be made.
In San Pedro, meanwhile, herbalists have completed the third week since the harvest stopped and remain firm in their position of not delivering green leaves to dryers until prices improve.
The outlook for the industry is complex because the National Yerba Mate Institute it has remained headless since early last December, when Juan José Szychowski resigned to take a seat in the provincial legislature. The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries had announced the engineer Daniel Notta as the new president, a man very close to the former governor Ramón Puerta, but his appointment was postponed due to his rejection raised among producers.
Notta is linked to the process of deregulation of the herbal market during the presidency of Carlos Menem. This initiative led to an unprecedented crisis in the sector, with the impoverishment of the first link in the production chain and the abandonment of plantations. Just over twenty years ago, yerba mate farmers marched on their tractors to Posadas and camped for a month to demand the creation of the National Yerba Mate Institute, an organization that would provide some profitability to the ring weakest in the chain based on production price.
President Javier Milei’s decision to strip the INYM of the power to set commodity prices has failed a bucket of cold water for producers. The landing of Juan Alberto Pazo last week brought some calm to herbalists, at least in the short term.
The official not only gave the green light to the price session, but also guaranteed that the Secretariat will set the reference values if the price of the green leaf and the courted one is finally rewarded, something that everyone already takes for granted in Misiones and Corrientes .
Source: Clarin
