For the first time in 22 years, yerba producers began the coarse harvest period this week without a support price for green leaf and courtada (dried yerba, without grinding). The National Institute of Yerba Mate (INYM) was mortally wounded by the DNU that deregulated part of the economy.
Deregulation should not impact shelf prices, at least in the short term. The thing is that the value of the package at the exit of the mill already had a correction from the
strong devaluation of last December
. There was also no significant increase in what is paid for green leaves, which is around 370 pesos per kilo placed in the drying room. “With the value that the yerba has in the market,
the industrialists could pay the 500 pesos that the producers demand without touching the price of the package
,” said a representative of the yerbate growers.
The one who also sought to bring some peace of mind was the Minister of Industry, Labor and Commerce of Corrientes,
Mariel Gabu
r. “
I don't think at all that prices will go up
,” she said on Radio Sudamericana. The official explained that today in the herbal market “there is a price that the majority is paying, a stable price. (The activity) has been going very well in recent times, the truth is that I do not expect an increase,” she insisted.
Gabur, who is also a member of the INYM board, even spoke of a campaign of fear by some sectors, which predicted a kilo of weed at 6,000 pesos in supermarkets following deregulation.
Furthermore,
it 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 to say, below that you cannot pay, but above that you can pay as much as you want. “That's what happens,” he said.
“I don't think the price will skyrocket. Today, industrialists have the possibility of influencing the price paid to the producer and thereby maintaining the price at the mill exit,” said a cooperative member. Today, the price of a kilo package of weed on a truck is around 2,200 pesos. “With these amounts 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,
took away the INYM's power to set reference values
, leaving more than 10,000 small producers in Misiones in a defenseless situation. .
An appeal for protection was not enough to stop this advance
on an economy that suffered one of its worst crises at the end of the 90s.
This situation of bankruptcy 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 get Congress to approve the law creating the INYM.
The setting of reference prices based on a grid of production costs allowed the recovery of activity and the area of yerbale
s to be considerably expanded. 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 overproduction
.
After the failure of the price session last March, the representatives of the farmers before the INYM insist that it is necessary to send the information to the Ministry of Agriculture so that the corresponding award can be issued, but others point out that the price session It could never be opened due to the absence of the directors who represent the industry and Corrientes. “You cannot send an award because there was no disagreement between the parties,” admitted one of the board members. “This instance opens when there is no unanimity to set prices. Here we could not reach that stage because of 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 productive chain he clarified that the decree would only come into force when the regulatory decree was known. And that until then the Institute maintained its powers to set prices, something that now the industrialists and Corrientes are unaware of.