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Argentina turns the provision of yerba mate into a matter of state

2022-04-27T04:00:07.756Z


The Government of Alberto Fernández announces the purchase of 1.6 million kilos of the infusion to supply the population in the midst of the worst monthly inflation since 2002


A man drinks mate in Buenos Aires during the protests in the agricultural sector, last Sunday. Natacha Pisarenko (AP)

Argentina registered in April the highest inflation since the corralito crisis of 2002 and the market accelerated to catch up.

Prices rose 6.7%, according to the latest data for March, and Argentines are already preparing for what is to come: the Government has just authorized a 9.5% increase in telephony, cable television and the internet ;

Buenos Aires will inaugurate its book fair in a couple of days with increases of up to 15%;

and even the most extravagant markets such as vinyl records have announced that prices will climb up to 30%.

But no increase is more serious than that of food: 7.2% only last month.

Faced with the shadow that discontent will once again take to the streets, the Government of Alberto Fernández has announced this Tuesday that it will spend 643 million pesos (about 5.6 million dollars,

The Ministry of Social Security has approved the purchase of 1.6 million kilos of the infusion that will be distributed in bags of one kilo.

According to the tender published in the official bulletin, the Government will pay two companies about 402 pesos per bag, more or less the price of the supermarket.

Mate, the most popular drink in the country, is drunk hot all year round and cold in some homes during the summer.

Always bitter for the purists, with some sweetener for the initiated and with a lot of sugar when hunger strikes.

Its consumption is so deeply rooted in the popular classes of the country, that even Carlos Gardel dedicated a tango to it: "When you have neither faith / nor yesterday's yerba / drying in the sun", he sings about pain in

Yira Yira,

referring to mate that is recycled when no more can be purchased.

Brewing a bowl to drink the infusion through a straw is a popular activity in some regions of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, but it is inseparable from the spirit of the inhabitants of Uruguay and Argentina.

Proof of this is that the Argentines have dedicated a national date to it, November 30, they have created

sommeliers

of the infusion, and maintain a national institute.

Precisely the National Institute of Yerba Mate presented a study in 2016 in which it stated that an average Argentine drinks 100 liters of mate each year.

This is four times more than your consumption of mineral water, twice that of soda, and three times more than beer or wine.

The Government has limited itself to publishing the tender in its bulletin without giving further details.

But the measure, announced a month after Alberto Fernández declared "a war against inflation" while the social movements that reject his policies began to take to the streets of Buenos Aires, extends a hand to the sectors hardest hit by the increase in prices.

Mate is not only a spiritual company for Argentines, it also distracts hunger well when money is not enough for anything else.

And its price per kilo has risen 4.2% in the last month alone.

Social movements affirm that there are at least 1.8 million Argentines who do not receive any help from the State.

While the internal fight with the sectors related to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner hits Fernández and the popular groups that only respond to the vice president turn their backs on her, the Government seeks palliatives before the next inflation data is published.

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Source: elparis

All business articles on 2022-04-27

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