As manufacturers continue to demand better prices for raw materials, Yerba mate sales continue to increase. In the first two months, yerba mate production from mills to domestic and foreign markets increased by 6.2 percent compared to the same period last year.
The National Yerba Mate Institute (INYM) detailed this in its monthly report In the month of February, 20,155,532 kilos of Argentine materos were sold; while another 2,902,116 kilos left for other markets.
If we add the sales of January, in the first two months the Argentines requested 41,687,650 kilos in the first two months of the year, 1.5 million more than in the first two months of 2023. The growth was 3.9%, a more than interesting volume in times of crisis. economic recession in the country.
While shipments abroad increased by 1.25 million kilos in the same period, reaching 6,945,742 kilos. This is The year started with a 22% increase in exports.
On the producers’ side, hThere was a sharp increase in the summer harvest compared to the previous three years, conditioned by the intense drought that affected the entire production region. In the first two months of the year, almost 55 million kilos were harvested, an increase of more than 130% compared to last year. The need of farmers to cover bills and good germination after regularization of rains are some of the factors that have pushed farmers to harvest in summer.
Claudio Hacklander, representative of primary producers at the National Yerba Mate Institute, announced that “after the drought of recent years, we will have a significantly higher harvest. We will far exceed what was produced in previous years and this can represent a complication because the market for yerba mate is very limited. Overproduction will cause green leaf prices to fall and dryers will extend payment terms,” she warned.
As for increasing the amount of raw material, Hacklander said that “the grasses planted between 2017 and 2020 are coming into full production. These are very high-density grasses,” he explained. The ruralist said that “until a few years ago we had 180,000 hectares of grass, but now the area has increased to more than 210,000 hectares and today there is no market for so much grass”, he lamented.
At the moment, The industrial sector pays 370 pesos per kilo of green leaves put in the dryerbut the producers assure that it should reach 505 pesos to be profitable and allow good management of the herbs.
At the National Yerba Mate Institute They could not set prices for the busy harvest season due to the lack of representatives from Corrientes and the mills. These sectors claim that the Institute has been headless since December and that the DNU is in force, which has taken away its power to establish reference values for green leaf and courtada (dry grass, without grinding).
Since the price session could never be opened, the INYM cannot request the decision from the National Agriculture Office. Despite this, general information and the cost grid will be sent in the next few days in an effort for the Ministry of Bioeconomy to analyze the situation and take some measures to maintain farmers’ profitability.
Source: Clarin
