Behind Yerba Mate Craze, Argentine Farmers Bemoan Milei’s Austerity

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Yerba mate trees take years to mature and produce for decades to meet steady, culturally embedded local demand. “The decision to plant yerba mate is almost a lifetime decision,” Karaben said. “It’s very difficult for small producers to get out of the business because they dedicate all their capital to it.”

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A steady climb in exports since 2022 barely dented the oversupply of green and processed leaf, pinching day laborers and small-scale producers the hardest. 

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Respite

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Thousands moved to the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, where a graying population and the flight of young workers to cities are draining farm country of productive labor. The dynamic is evident in Ilópolis, billed as Brazil’s yerba mate capital.

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Many Argentines “arrive with just the clothes on their back,” said Nelson Trentin, 62, who runs a local bar where elder patrons shoot pool. “But if it weren’t for them, things would grind to a halt. There are no young people here.” 

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Argentine yerba mate farmers, mostly day laborers known as tareferos, and small-scale producers often pick up work outside Misiones during the off season, but labor leaders say the latest exodus is extraordinary.

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“Almost all of Misiones is in Brazil right now,” Ana Cubilla, head of the Sindicato Único de Obreros Rurales, a provincial farm workers’ union, said in April.

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The opportunity can be risky. In recent years, Brazilian authorities have rescued dozens working off the books in precarious conditions in Rio Grande do Sul.

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Mixer Boost

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In Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Chile and Brazil, yerba mate is traditionally imbibed through a metal straw. Historically, the vessel was an ornate dried gourd. Fans abroad are now embracing it in a tin can. One estimate from Data Bridge Market Research valued the global market at about $1.6 billion in 2024, heading toward a projected $2.4 billion by 2032.

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One of the ready-to-drink yerba mate concoctions popping up on US store shelves is SOLLOS. The South Florida company sources the raw ingredient from Brazil and sells each 12-pack of its pineapple and coconut-flavored drink for around $39. 

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Among the SOLLOS founders is Spencer Bernstein, 22, along with his high school pal, Barron Trump. Their beverage “mixes really well with vodka, tequila and rum,” said Bernstein, a Palm Beach native partial to tennis and surfing. It’s a “much healthier better-tasting mixer alternative than what’s out there and gives you that boost you need on a night out.”

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That’s not the kind of boost Misiones farmers are longing for. The region embodies the “breakdown of provinces that were unviable or had structural problems that are now surfacing all at once,” said economist Ramiro Albrieu at the Universidad de Buenos Aires.

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Even as Milei’s policies earn Argentina a third upgrade in its sovereign credit rating in three months, fatigue is mounting. Some 58% of Argentines disapproved of him in June, according to LatAm Pulse, a survey by AtlasIntel for Bloomberg News, while 62% described the country’s economic situation as “bad.”

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That sentiment is captured in the plight of the farmers, many of whom are now putting down roots in Brazil.

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Registrations by Argentines for Brazilian tax IDs — required for formal employment — soared from an average of roughly 8,000 a year before 2022 to more than 39,000 last year, according to Brazil’s federal tax authority.

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In Rio Grande do Sul, the newcomers are filling gaps around small towns like Ilópolis where family farms often lack successors. 

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“Our daughter wants nothing to do with this,” said Nade Benvenutti, 60, who produces yerba mate with her husband outside Ilópolis.

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Another grower, Cláudir Franzon, employs six Argentines at his nearby farm. “Without the Argentines I’d have to abandon much of this,” he said.

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Cesar Benítez, 29, moved to Brazil in 2024 and has since found a full-time job at a yerba mate mill in Ilópolis. He and his wife are now Brazilian residents. 

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While Milei’s reforms were necessary, the president has created a system where “if you don’t work you don’t eat,” Benítez said. “It’s going to take a while for things to get better.”

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—With assistance from Robert Jameson and Andre Loureiro Dias.

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