There's no better way to break out of a city-life routine than getting your socks blown off by the friendliness of the good people of the country-side. I arrived in Venancio Aires, a small town with some of Brazil's biggest tobacco and yerba mate producers, late at night on Friday, 02 May for the annual yerba mate fest. called FENACHIM (Festa Nacional do Chimarrão). It was time to start my journey into the world of yerba mate. I knew that the small-town folk are generally unaware that yerba mate is exported from South America at all and that it would not make real sense to most that a young South African "businessman"/hitch-hiker with a huge backpack was passing through their town as part of a 5 month mission through 4 countries to find the right yerba mate for the South African market. So, my strategy was to introduce myself as a student of journalism on an exchange programme writing an article about yerba mate as part of a Uni. project.

Video of a Slightly Confused Jovi Before Taking on the Gauchos: Good Morning

I arrived at FENACHIM at about 09:00am . It was a huge fair organised on a huge piece of municipal land with various sections. The main attractions of the 10-day festival were the two large concert stages which featured popular Brazilian musicians and bands, the "Escola do Chimarrão" (School of Mate) and the Gaucho motor-cross championship which was to be held the following day. A bit overwhelmed, I walked into the nearest door to ask for a map and information about the festival. This place turned out to be one of two radio stations covering the event. They noticed my accent, asked what I was doing there, one thing led to another and they invited me for a live broadcast talk with the mayor of the town. 

Radio Interview With Subtitles: Radio Interview with Subtitles
 
Learning To Make Brazilian Chimarrão at The School of Chimarrão: Making Chimarrão

After the first interview the major of the town invited me to his chambers where I met all the people responsible for the event, the radio coverage, the television coverage, yerba mate producers, yerba mate farmers, government officials in the yerba mate industry and a whole bunch more . One more radio interview and a newspaper interview followed over the three days that I was there. I was treated like a celebrity. After introducing myself as a South African people would generally say something, like, "can you believe it?", and then, in awe they would  repeat, "Africa do Sul" (South Africa) with a pause between each word and with emphasis on the first letter of each , "Africa - Do - Sul". The truth is I have never been treated that well by strangers. As from the first day I was offered a place to stay in the house of a couple who were on the organising committee with my own room and bathroom, I ate breakfast, lunch and supper with them everyday and they drove me around to wherever I needed to go.  Thank you to everyone who made my experience of Venancio Aires so special, especially Jose Antonio and Rosa.

With the red carpet neatly rolled out for me, all I had to do from that point onward was to walk it. My first encounter was with an agri-economist who studies the yerba mate supply chain among other things. I learned that there are eight sectors in the yerba mate supply chain, starting with the botanist who sells the sprout to the farmer who plants and maintains it and contracts harvesters in the harvest season then sells the raw material to factories where it gets processed and moves onto refineries, packaging plants etc. He explained that the reason for the spike (60%) in the yerba mate price over the last two years was that many yerba mate farmers exited the market due to the low selling price of the raw material between 2009 - 2011 . As such, many farmers felled their yerba mate trees to plant tobacco and soy. In my view, this could be positive for the industry because only the fittest producers and most yerba-mate-loving farmers would have survived and now they are rewarded and motivated by a more favourable price. 

Every yerba mate specialist I met would tell me what they had the most knowledge about in the industry, then they would take me and introduce me personally to the next specialist who had knowledge of another sector in the industry. This way I met individuals who work in each step of the yerba mate supply chain, including a visit to one of the biggest yerba mate production plants in Brazil, Madrugada. I started to learn the technicalities of cultivating, harvesting, drying and milling the yerba mate in order to yield the highest quality product. Even though there is much yet to touch, hear, feel and smell this was the beginning of empowering myself as an informed yerba mate buyer for the South Africa market .

Teasers for the next blog entries to come...

1. Motevideo, Uruguay: TEASER - 01
2. Palmeira das Missoes, Brazil: TEASER - 02