Yerba mate producers from Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil join forces

Growers from Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay Tuesday launched the South American Federation of Yerba Mate Producers “to protect and promote” their activity and work toward its “worldwide dissemination,” it was announced in Buenos Aires. The founders of the new guild highlighted mate's value as a natural and healthy food in the global market. Also Tuesday it was agreed that Argentina would hold the first three years of the group's rotating presidency, with Nelson Dalcolmo of the National Institute of Yerba Mate (INYM) at the entity's helm. “Each of these three countries has a particular emblematic product made from yerba mate; for Brazilians, it is chimarrão; in Paraguay, they have tereré and we Argentines have mate,” explained INYM board member Claudio Marcelo Hacklander in a radio interview. Representing the INYM at Tuesday's convention were Dalcolmo, Hacklander, and Jonas Petterson. The Brazilian Institute of Erva Mate (IBRAMATE) sent Alberto Tomelero, Cleomar Henrique Konzen, ...