May in Misiones

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit the secadero cooperative in Guarani, where my friend, Luis, stands as president. This visit was a distinct, Argentine experience because the secadero is the machinery involved in the first step of the processing of the yerba mate. In this step, the yerba goes through various rounds of heat, where the yerba is dried out. At the end of the drying process, three kilos of yerba will yield one kilo.
Not only does yesterday stand out in the yerba mate history books for me, but for all of Misiones. Yesterday was the first day of striking on Route 14. The yerba mate producers on Route 14 are getting paid less than the producers on Route 12. Not only are the producers asking for equal wages to the producers on Route 12, but they are asking that all producers be paid for half of the real price that is paid by the consumer. But, I did not see many farmers in Route 14 when I passed by with Luis, because apparently, there is division among the producers as to how to get the increase in wage. Here’s some background as to why….
In 2001, when Argentina had its major economic crisis, the Instituto Nacional Yerba Mate (National Institute of Yerba Mate), or INYM, was created. The purpose of INYM was to create a table for dialogue and agreements between the different stages of production of yerba mate. The tareferos (day laborers), producers, secadores, molinos (the grinding and packaging of the yerba), the state government, and the national government are all included with various representatives of each group at the table. INYM created a national law that attempted to control and regulate the price and quality of the yerba mate. However, the table is not sitting level on four legs. Some of the legs are larger than some of the others. Even though INYM claims to have a table for dialogue, it seems that some of the voices are not being heard, or that some of the groups are not well represented at this table. On Saturday, May 24th, the producers had a meeting in the secadero and decided to begin a strike and stop all production at the secadero level until they are heard from the molinos and the government. So when I visited the secadero, I was not able to see the yerba mate in production.
Please pray for all of the producers and consumers in Argentina, that the country can see some justice in all produce prices.

El Primero de Mayo

I am dedicating this month’s entry to my friend Alberto in Caa-Yari, Misiones, Argentina. He, unlike others in Argentina, will not be taking today, May Day, off because he will be working his soil, yerba, tobacco, pigs, and garden. I have spent the last eight months getting to know producers in the southern-central region of the province of Misiones, Argentina. I have heard the stories of tobacco growers, yerba and tea producers, and of those trying alternative methods in order to survive on their land. I have heard too many stories about the system of slavery and indentured servitude in the region, in which large companies from the U.S. and Europe offer oppressive deals with producers to sell products from mandarins to tobacco and they are keeping the producers of Misiones in poverty.
In early April, I spent the morning with Alberto and his wife on their farm. They took me on a tour of their pig farm, and showed me where they were drying the tobacco to be sold in Alem later in the month. He explained to me the oppressive system of tobacco producing, in which he is involved. In order to grow the tobacco, the company requires that he buy the tobacco seeds, the fertilizer, the chemicals, even the compost and soil, from the company. The money spent in buying the products will be taken off the final cost of the final product of tobacco at a high rate. The company explains to Alberto exactly how to grow the tobacco, and hires workers to come to his farm to make sure that he is following all of the procedures explained to him. If he has not followed correctly, money will be taken off his final product as well. The actually growing process involves the application of dangerous chemicals, ones that inhibit the growth of the tobacco flower, to continue the growth of the leaves. This chemical is not permitted usage in the United States of America because of its toxicity level! The most frustrating aspect is the soil that the producer is required to buy. Why on earth would a producer need to buy soil that has been shipped from New York when the red soil of Misiones is known to be extremely fertile? The collection, drying, and sorting process is a while other story. After Alberto has sorted and bunched his tobacco together, he will bring it to a collective in Alem that will evaluate his crop and give him a final value. After he is given his final value, the debt that is owed will be taken off. This last year, Alberto earned about $7,000 pesos, which is equivalent to less than $2,500 U.S.D. And that is Alberto’s annual income.
How is it possible that people are spending the amount of money on cigarettes, and the tobacco companies are making billions of dollars a year, and yet Alberto comes out with $2,500 a year? It is hard for me to take in the lack of equality in this system. This year, I am working with producers to search for other methods to bring in an annual income, other than a work that not only generates very little income, but also puts its producers at risk daily. Producers suffer for not only the chemicals that they are exposed to in the producing, but also a high daily dose of second hand smoke, just from working with the crop. Producers suffer from high risks of emphysema and cancer due to the working of this crop.
Right now I am reading “Open Veins of Latin America”, by Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan writer. The book gives the history of the conquest of the Americas, and the economic, political and social analysis of the results of the conquest of Latin America. It is an appalling account of the oppression that has taken place in this continent of the world. In his introduction, Galeano states:
“Latin America is the region of open veins. Everything from the discovery until our times, has always been transmuted into European – or later United States – capital, as such has accumulated into distant centers of power. Everything- the soil, its fruits and its mineral-rich depths, the people and their capacity to work and to consume, natural resources and human resources. Production methods and class structure have been successfully determined from outside for each area by meshing it into the universal gearbox of capitalism. To each area has been assigned a function, always for the benefit of the foreign metropolis of the moment, and the endless chain of dependency has been endlessly extended. The chain has more than two links. In Latin America it also includes the oppression of small countries by their larger neighbors and, within each country’s frontiers, the exploitation by big cities and ports of their internal sourced of food and labor. (Four centuries ago sixteen of twenty biggest Latin American cities already existed.)”
“For those who see history as a competition, Latin America’s backwardness and poverty are merely the result of its failure. We lost; others won. But the winners happen to have won thanks to our losing; the history of Latin America’s underdevelopment is, as someone has said, an integral part of the history of world capitalism’s development. Our defeat was always implicit in the victory of others; our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others – the empires and their native overseers. In the colonial and neocolonial alchemy, gold changes into scrap metal and food into poison.” (Galeano, Eduardo, Open Veins of Latin America, 2)
This year, I have been working with the Project on Sustainable Development and Human Promotion, through the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Argentina and Uruguay (IELU) to work with producers in the province of Misiones, to search for alternative methods of subsistence and ways to live that are more sustainable for the producers, consumers, and the earth. However, working with producers, searching for methods to get out of the dependency system of the big international businesses is not easy. For many of the producers, growing tobacco is all that they know. Their great-grandfathers emigrated from Europe to Argentine in search for a better life, and began to grow tobacco. Also, the producers, through the dependency system of the tobacco companies and the local government, have become accustomed to someone coming in and telling them how to grow the tobacco. The producers are not actors of their own destiny. Instead, they wait for outsiders to come in and save them by telling them what to do. In this project, we are not telling the producers what to do, so the process is a slow one. We have discussions on new dreams and visions, and my prayer is that slowly the farmers will have the courage to drop what they know and go for their dreams, knowing that God is walking with them at all times in the struggle. Please keep the producers and the project in your prayers.