For the first time in 22 years, yerba producers this week began the rough harvest period without a support price for green leaf and courtada (dried, unmilled yerba). The National Yerba Mate Institute (INYM) was mortally wounded by the DNU deregulating part of the economy.
Deregulation is not expected to have any impact on shelf prices, at least in the short term. The fact is that the value of the package at the exit of the mill has already undergone a correction by the sharp devaluation last December. There has also been no significant increase in the price paid for green leaves, which amounts to around 370 pesos per kilo placed in the dryer. “With the value that weed has on the market, Industrialists could pay the 500 pesos requested by producers without touching the price of the package“said a representative of the herbalists.
Also trying to bring some tranquility was the Minister of Industry, Labor and Commerce of Corrientes, Mariel GabuR. “I don’t think prices will increase at all.“, he told Radio Sudamericano. The official explained that today in the herbal market “there is a price that the majority pays, a stable price. (The business) has been doing very well lately, the truth is that I don’t expect an increase,” he insisted.
Gabur, who is also a member of the INYM board of directors, even spoke of a fear campaign by some sectors, which expected a kilo of weed for 6,000 pesos in supermarkets after deregulation.
Moreover, relativized the importance of the prices set by the Institute. “If I put a value it is always the minimum that can be paid. That is, below you can’t pay, but above you can pay as much as you want. “This is what happens,” she said.
“I don’t think the price will skyrocket. Today, industrialists have the possibility to influence the price paid to the producer and therefore to maintain the price at the exit of the plant”, explains a member of the cooperative. Today the price of a one kilo pack of grass on a truck is around 2,200 pesos. “With these figures they could pay 450 pesos for the raw material without sacrificing profitability,” he explained.
Last December, as soon as he took office, President Javier Milei signed decree 70/2023 which, among other things, It took away the INYM’s power to set reference valuesleaving more than 10,000 small producers of Misiones in a defenseless situation. There was no call for protection to stop this advance. about an economy that suffered one of its worst crises in the late 1990s.
This situation of failure led the producers to carry out a tractor attack in the provincial capital to force the creation of the Institute. The herbalists camped with their old tractors and trucks for more than a month around Plaza 9 de Julio until they managed to convince Congress to pass the law establishing the INYM.
The setting of reference prices based on a grid of production costs allowed the resumption of activity and the considerable expansion of the yerbale area.S. Today there are more than 210,000 hectares of yerba mate in Misiones and Corrientes and some analysts estimate that in one or two years there will be an overproduction.
After the failure of the price session last March, farmers’ representatives before the INYM insist on the need to send the information to the Ministry of Agriculture so that the corresponding premium can be issued, but others point out that the price session never could be opened due to the absence of the directors representing the industry and Corrientes. “It is not possible to send an award because there was no disagreement between the parties,” admitted one of the board members. “This instance is opened when there is no unanimity to set prices. Here we have not been able to reach this stage due to the lack of these people,” he explained.
The secretary of Industry and Productive Development of the Nation, Juan Alberto Pazo, was in Misiones last February and in a meeting with representatives of the production chain he clarified that the decree will only come into force when the regulatory decree is known. And that until then the Institute has retained its power to set prices, something of which the industrialists and Corrientes are now unaware.
Source: Clarin
