Just days after federal justices ratified an injunction returning all of its powers to the National Institute of Yerba Mate (INYM), Jonas Petterson has resigned from his position, who has served as president since late last year. The yerba producer had been temporarily at the helm of the Institute because Javier Milei’s government had not yet appointed the new president of the board of directors.
The Andresito producer decided to step aside due to the lack of support from the board of directors in the decision-making process. Through his social networks, Petterson underlined that “above all interests there is the integrity and functionality of the National Yerba Mate Institute, which I ratify in its origin”, for this reason “today I have made the decision to renounce to the function that the Board of Directors has assigned to me, a function which I have exercised with great honour”.
“I thank those who have accompanied this journey and I will continue to work and contribute with everything in my power to improve the herbal activity, as I have always done, especially for the production sector,” he said on Instagram.
Petterson announced his decision during Thursday’s board meeting. This was reported by sources at the Institute He had grown tired of the obstacles that some links in the production chain posed to his initiatives.. “The INYM is still waiting for the nomination of the president by the Nation, but in all this time there has been a strong campaign of discredit and attacks,” they explained within the INYM as soon as the leader left the his assignment. Unable to bring the Institute out of stagnation, Petterson chose to resign and another representative of the primary producers, Nelson Doltremo, took over in his place.
One of the major points of conflict Petterson faced was the failure to reach an agreement on a possible award request to the Ministry of Agriculture (now Bioeconomics) due to the non-participation of the directors of Corrientes and Industry in the February and March price sessions. The now former president supported the position of sending information to the Nation and used as an argument the statements of the Secretary of Industry and Productive Development of the Nation, Juan Alberto Pazo, who was in Posadas in February and stated that the deregulation of yerbatero had just been implemented and would come into force with the publication of the DNU regulatory decree. This initiative was also unsuccessful.
Petterson’s slamming of the door came just three days after Posadas announced the resolution of the Federal Court of Appeals, which ratified an injunction that halted the progress of the national government’s deregulation of the herbal market.
The protection had been promoted by a group of producers and the thesis was that the Institute would lose its funding and with it the resources it partly used for the health coverage of small producers.
The ratification of the amparohe evolved all the faculties at INYM, including the setting of reference prices for green leaf and Canadian yerba mate. And these powers will remain until there is a final Court decision on the merits of the matter.
The rough harvest season started ten days ago and for the first time in more than two decades there is no reference price. Dryers pay on average 370 pesos per kilo of pressed green leaves, but producers claim that a certain profitability is only achieved with a value above 500 pesos.
Source: Clarin
