ANDRESITO, Argentina. For millions of people throughout the heart of South America, bitter-tasting yerba mate tea is a beloved staple of social gatherings and morning routines. But here, in the humid grasslands of the province of Misiones, northeastern Argentina, mate is also a way of life, literally.
For generations, low-paid workers known as “tareferos” have toiled in the forests of Misiones, the mate capital of the world. They get paid by weight, so every morning the race begins. From dawn to dusk, they cut a seemingly endless crop of hardy leaves and stuff them into white bags until they burst. After drying, packaging and trucking, the herbs spread to virtually every home, office and school in Argentina, as well as to neighboring Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and further afield.
For tariffs, mate is primarily a commodity, selling for $22 a ton. But workers also drink the infusion during breaks in the field, as its caffeine helps them stay energized. The hard work in northeastern Argentina dates back to the arrival of the Spanish, when indigenous tribes worked on Jesuit plantations in what is now Paraguay.
“Yerba mate gives us harmony and strength,” said Isabelino Méndez, head of an indigenous village in Misiones. “It’s part of our culture.”
Argentina’s government has long supported the mate industry with price controls and subsidies, keeping farmers’ incomes higher than they would be if they were subject to free market competition.
But this year, libertarian President Javier Milei’s draconian financial measures to fix the economy have plunged both mate producers and tareferos into uncertainty. To reduce the size of the state, Milei seeks to eliminate price controls and other regulations that affect a variety of markets, including yerba mate.
Small producers fear that large companies will set prices they cannot match and drive them out of the market.
Julio Petterson, a mate producer from the northern town of Andresito, fears a repeat of what happened in the 1990s, when similar liberal policies wreaked havoc on small producers. “We barely survived,” he said. “Thousands of other producers went bankrupt.”
Workers say they are preparing for mass layoffs.
“If the government deregulates prices, this will hurt the producers who own the land and ultimately we will lose our jobs,” said Antonio Pereyra Ramos, 40, who supervises 18 workers. “The economic crisis is hitting us hard.”
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