Yerba mate crops between the ages of 8 and 9 have suffered losses between 20% and 30% in plants
The harvest of the yerba mate is significantly delayed in the first four months of the year. The sector has highlighted that there are two main factors that delayed the entry of raw material into the dryers: on the one hand the drought that lasted until the first days of March, Y the delay of the Ministry of Agriculture in setting the reference values for green leaf and canchada yerba (dry, not ground).
Only in the first four months of the year Just over 128 million kilos were industrialized against 270,282,202 in the same period of 2021. The fall of the green leaf at the entrance to the drying plants about 47.5%. The biggest drop occurred in April, when the dense harvest season had already begun but agriculture delayed the deliberation of the award that the National Yerba Mate Institute (INYM) had asked for due to the impossibility of agreeing on the values. of reference with the different links of the production chain.
In that month, 54,605,371 kilos of green leaves were collected compared to 126,979,184 kilos in April last year. Historically, the average green leaf income in April is 120 million pounds.
Just in the first week of May, agriculture set at $ 46.89 per kilo of green leaf and at 178.18 the court put in the dryer. These figures have generated great anger among the thousands of small yerba mate producersbecause they believed that in Buenos Aires they conformed to the request of the industrialists for fear that the value of the package on the gondola would skyrocket.
Yerba mate producers assured that there had already been a price shift because the lack of raw material meant that dryers had to pay more than $ 60 per kilo of green leaves in order to meet their commercial commitments.
The producers had also delayed the start of the harvest because the yerba mate plantations had been severely affected by the drought. started in 2019. The water deficit caused not only the death of the plants, but also a considerable delay in budding. Losses of more than 40% of the harvest were expected in the sector, but the arrival of abundant rainfall has generated a significant recovery of the herbs and now it is estimated that the yields will be just below the historical average.
INYM statistics also revealed that there has been a slight decline in overseas yerba mate shipments. Exports amounted to 9,472,140 kilos, almost 8% less than in the first quarter of 2021. And there are two pending data: in February the minimum of one million kilos broke, given that only 647,698 kilos have left the country, a figure not recorded for at least the last eight years. The downside was the strong recovery in April, when 4.1 million kilos were shipped.
The domestic market, which compensated for the drop in exports last year, is showing a slight decline this year. In the first quarter, 90,923,652 kilos of yerba mate left the mills, compared to 92,438,464 kilos in the same period last year.
Historically, domestic consumption of yerba mate increases as the country experiences periods of economic hardship. It is that many families who are below the poverty line increase the consumption of mate cocido and infusion to provide at least one meal of the day.
The plight of the farmers of Misiones after the drought and the fires
Source: Clarin
