Yerba Madre’s Important Work Of Prioritizing Farmer Welfare Through Regenerative Yerba Mate

Over the past 30 years, Yerba Madre, formerly Guayakí, created an independent supply chain of Regenerative Organic Certified yerba mate. It’s been doing it decades before the certification was even established.

As Christopher Gergen, CEO of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, says, “Guayakí is the OG.”

Yerba Madre was always a mission-driven business that used the native South American plant to grow shade-grown yerba mate as a way to reforest and regenerate the Atlantic Rainforest, while providing welfare to the farmers doing the work on the ground. It did that by introducing the cultural herbal beverage to a new market in the US.

About six years into its business, Guayakí needed a lot more yerba mate than any one partner (In this case, Paraguay’s Aché Kue Tuvy tribe) can supply. “We were buying virtually the only shade-grown organic mate that existed on the planet,” Yerba Madre cofounder Steven Karr tells me. But with very few options to source yerba mate that was shade-grown–a non-negotiable–its founders built a network of farmers to begin transitioning their farms from conventional agriculture to regenerative and worked with indigenous tribes to build out regenerative yerba mate farms for them.

These are long-term projects. It takes about five years to grow yerba mate that’s ready for an initial harvest, and much longer for a farm to become 100% shade-grown. “We’re not good as a global society of saying, ‘you have to work your butt off right now, but trust me, it’ll work for you in the long term,’” Yerba Madre CEO Ben Mand says. “It takes a special kind of person to have that belief.”

Yerba Madre now works with more than 250 families from Indigenous peoples and local communities, across 42 farms and four Indigenous lands in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay to exclusively source its yerba mate. Many of those are in Argentina’s Misiones Province, known as the “Green Corridor,” the most cohesive region of the 16% of the Atlantic Rainforest that’s estimated to remain today.

Hurdles Of Transitioning To Regenerative

It is a difficult task to gain the trust of indigenous tribes and help communities farm regeneratively. “The three major barriers to farms transitioning are cost, knowledge, and market,” Gergen says. Yerba Madre’s unique business model solves the problem of cost. All agricultural costs are covered by the company; the farmers never need to pay out of pocket.

Notably, Yerba Madre pays at least 25% above the conventional market price for yerba mate so that every farmer working with them earns a dignified income. “There are some instances…where that 25% premium is not still at the livable wage,” Mand says. “So we will pay whatever it is. In some cases we’re paying double the [conventional]

market rate.”

However, the ROA believes the company should not have to take on all of that responsibility. “It’s really remarkable to see what Guayakí does,” Gergen says. “But we should be thinking about ways that we can raise additional philanthropic capital to be able to help support this transition.”

Farmers are still concerned about producing enough yield to support their families. This is where knowledge comes into play. It’s not apparent on the surface, but regenerative farming does in fact help yield in the long run. “We use less water. We’re a lot more resilient,” Gergen explains, referring to how healthy soil, the pivotal pillar in regenerative farming, helps retain water, making farms more drought-resistant, something increasingly concerning in the rainforest. With less sun beating down on the ground, the soil is also better protected. “Once a farm makes that transition, often their yield will go up, their cost of inputs goes down, and the quality of their product improves.”

Yerba Madre will also typically bring interested communities to other farms so that they can see firsthand how others are benefitting. “The key was starting with a small cohort who were a little more progressive in their thinking and more open to trying things,” says Mand. “It’s peer to peer. It’s that snowball effect.”

Through growing shade-grown yerba mate, many of these communities are able to find other sources of income as well, whether it’s selling produce from the other pioneer trees at markets or by driving truckloads of yerba mate to factories.

The Indigenous Yvytu Pora Guaraní Community

“My dream is to produce mate,” says Juanita Gonzalez, La Cacique, or Chief, of the Indigenous Yvytu Pora tribe, a Guaraní community in Misiones Province, Argentina.

Gonzalez met Fabiana Pose, Yerba Madre’s Vice President of South America, at a women’s event in 2023, where women from many different backgrounds encouraged others by sharing more about the work that they do. “I was afraid of what people were going to ask me,” she says. Gonzalez brought some of her homemade artisan crafts, which is the work that has gotten her by. “My father always said to me that I should plant mate,” she remembers thinking at the event. “Mate is something that came from my ancestors. It’s part of my culture.”

It is very difficult for the native Guaraní people, like Gonzalez, to initiate the process of growing and selling yerba mate. The paperwork is overwhelming. “Producing mate is not just planting mate, there’s a whole process of documentation,” she says. “[Yerba Madre] provided the support. They went to government offices for us.”

Gonzalez’s son, Marcelo, has assisted with germinating the seeds and meticulously manages the nursery every day. Her daughter, Irena, was given a computer from Yerba Madre so she can earn an income too. She will help translate to and from Spanish and the Guaraní language for the company.

Yerba Madre’s Impact Fund goes beyond helping communities grow yerba mate, but provides a more dignified lifestyle. On Yvytu Pora’s land, the company is helping them build a community center. “When women have to deliver babies, they don’t go to hospitals. Doctors have to enter the community,” Pose says. “So we are creating a space for them to deliver and wait for medical assistance…to improve the bathroom and create a room with two beds and a small kitchen.” Yerba Madre also donates yerba mate to local schools so they too can learn how to grow shade-grown mate.

About three thousand yerba mate trees on Yvytu Pora’s land are currently growing in a nursery and will be planted this year. When this yerba mate is harvested in about four years, the tribe will earn an income from Yerba Madre.

The consumption of yerba mate originates with the Indigenous Guaraní people. “What we want is not just to produce yerba mate,” Pose explains, “but through the product, people can recognize the value of the Guaraní culture and their work.”

Gonzalez says, “now I can produce mate like my father wanted.”

The Surucua Farm

Surucua Farm, run by father-son duo José and Sebastián Zamolinsky, started to transition from conventional to regenerative farming five years ago. Now at about 50% shade-grown, there is a lot of biodiversity here which exponentially increases its rate of transition. “In Misiones Province, yerba mate is everything,” Sebastián says. “It’s the mother crop.”

José is an example of an older generation being concerned of a potentially low yield after transitioning. “That change in planting more trees, making the yerba fields more shaded–it scared me,” José says. But he soon learned how all of the shade actually protects the yerba plants and fights against drought and hailstorms. “The sun burns the yerba leaves,” he adds. “Every year, we see a deeper change in the damage of the sun on the plants.”

The Zamolinskys also grow other crops like cane sugar for cattle feed. Their cattle then roam the yerba mate plantation, clear the weeds–which both feeds the cattle and eliminates the need for pesticides–and its manure helps enrich the soil. It’s a win-win situation. “The cost is offset by the decrease in labor,” José says.

José and Sebastián are pleased with their partnership with Yerba Madre because the conventional yerba mate market in Argentina is in the midst of an economic crisis. “In the past, [the National Institute of Yerba Mate has] regulated the price of the market just to protect the growers, so you have a minimum price,” Pose explain. “The change in government… big companies take advantage of that and pay a price that doesn’t cover the cost. Now [the Zamolinskys] feel safe because they know the company is going to pay,” referring to the minimum 25% premium.

“I know there are a lot of producers who would want to come over to this system. They see the advantages,” José says.

The Indigenous Tape Mirí Guaraní Community

Before getting in contact with Yerba Madre, Hilario Monteiro, El Cacique of the Indigenous Tape Mirí Guaraní Community, never knew how to grow yerba mate–but he was searching for a way to learn. He feels that good spirits brought him together with Carlos “Colo” Hoff, a production technician and agronomist with Yerba Madre, several months ago. “If you have a good heart…to help those most in need, you always find it,” Monteiro says. “It’s not chance, but because you have the energy of wanting to do good things.”

Hoff grew up on a farm in Misiones Province. “I feel a special attachment to my land…I can really relate to the producers I work with.” Hoff tells me. “I can be the vehicle to achieve that connection between the company and what the producers want.”

Hoff works closely with Monteiro, who is currently at the very early stages of growing yerba mate–seeds are still germinating underneath sheets that mimic the dark canopy. Hoff has already built the nursery, which is ready to take on the plants once they begin to sprout. It is a game of patience.

“It’s important for there to be yerba in every community,” Monteiro says. “[It] makes you calm. It helps wake you up with energy…spiritually it makes you feel better…it’s a traditional medicine.”

Pose and Hoff also help complete the necessary paperwork to gain the slew of certifications, including official government permits, which can be extremely daunting for these communities. They make sure that everything is properly translated for them so that they understand what they sign.

Monteiro is excited about the opportunity to show the world what he and his people are capable of. “The culture and what the land offers–it’s part of us…not just drinking mate, but also through its essence we name our children.” Monteiro says. “People can learn to respect that other cultures also have something to offer.”

“Someone has to produce food, and there should be good conditions in the rural environment so people want to be there,” Hoff says. ”For humanity, it’s essential that they exist–the producers, the communities–and that the production also considers the preservation of these ecosystems.”