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Change in Mate Price in Misiones, Increase in CPF Applications in Brazil, and Job Search in the South Reveal How the Crisis in the Argentine Countryside Has Reconfigured Labor Migration Routes and Pressured Production Chains on Both Sides of the Border.
The increase of Argentinians in the Brazilian labor market has gained strength in recent years, especially among residents of Misiones, a border province that concentrates mate production in Argentina.
According to a report published by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, data attributed to the Federal Revenue Service indicates that the issuance of CPFs for Argentine citizens, a document required for formal hiring in Brazil, rose from an average of nearly 8,000 per year between 2016 and 2021 to almost 40,000 in 2025.
The movement occurs amid falling income in the Argentine countryside and the deregulation of the yerba mate sector promoted by the government of Javier Milei.
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Misiones, home to Puerto Iguazú, at the triple border, has become the center of this change, according to research by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.
The region supplies a large part of the yerba mate consumption in the neighboring country, but producers and workers report a rapid loss of income since the Argentine government removed from the National Yerba Mate Institute, INYM, the authority to establish minimum prices for the raw material.
The DNU 70/2023 changed the institute’s law and began to emphasize the competitive nature of the market, reducing the agency’s role in the economic regulation of the sector.
Yerba Mate Price in Argentina After Javier Milei
Until the end of 2023, INYM participated in setting minimum values for green leaves and processed yerba mate, in a system created after strong pressure from the productive sector in the early 2000s.
In 2022 and 2023, official resolutions still set these minimums.
With the change introduced by Milei’s government, this mechanism ceased to exist, and negotiations began to depend directly on the correlation of forces among producers, dryers, and the industry.
The secretary of the Rural Workers Union, Ana Cubilla, states that the impact was immediate in the producing areas.
According to her, the price for a kilo of green leaves, which in 2023 was around 420 pesos, fell to 180 pesos in part of Misiones, while input and fuel prices continued to rise.
More recent reports from local media and sector organizations indicate that the prices paid vary by region and type of buyer, with records of about 180 pesos in the central-southern part of the province, higher levels in the north, and intermediate figures in cooperatives.
This shrinking of remuneration has primarily affected tarefeiros, workers responsible for the manual harvesting of yerba mate, as well as small producers.
Ángel Enrique Ozeñuk, from San Vicente, reported that he receives about 220 pesos per kilo already processed in the dryer and says that many smaller properties have begun to suffer from the departure of labor.
For him, some of these workers found in Brazil a way to support their families amid the deterioration of income in Misiones.
Argentinians Seek Work in Brazil and Expand Seasonal Migration
The movement gained momentum in temporary harvests in Rio Grande do Sul.
Joaquin Rios, 32, a resident of San Pedro and father of two children, left his work in yerba mate and started working in grape harvesting in Pinto Bandeira, as reported in a report by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.
He reported that, in Argentina, the price paid per kilo no longer had practical correspondence in the market, and that in Brazil, he also receives meals and transportation.
“Besides the fare, we have lunch and dinner; we don’t even cook”.
In the area where he works, he stated that there are hundreds of Argentinians in similar situations.
Another worker, Lúcio Rodríguez Velasquez, said he has been traveling around Brazil since 2018, with experiences in harvesting tomatoes, apples, grapes, and strawberries in municipalities such as Flores da Cunha, Nova Pádua, and Caxias do Sul.
According to him, the daily earnings of R$ 180 allow him to get through the month with a financial margin higher than what he earned in Misiones.
The flow, therefore, is not limited to a singular movement: it is already forming a seasonal work network that connects Argentine cities to agricultural hubs in southern Brazil.
The president of the Rural Workers Union of Bento Gonçalves, Cedenir Postal, reported an increase in the Argentine presence in grape harvests in the municipality over the past three years; the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo also noted that the migratory flow has been growing continuously during this period.
The dynamics, according to him, operates through referrals among relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances, in a process where one worker brings another as they find better pay and more predictable hiring on the Brazilian side of the border.
Harvest in Southern Brazil and Labor Shortages in the Countryside
The absorption of these workers is also explained by the needs of the agribusiness sector in Rio Grande do Sul.
Representatives of the rural sector claim that there is a lack of labor for harvesting, while Brazilian producers value the experience of Argentinians in agricultural work, especially in pruning and manual harvesting.
Ilvandro Barreto, from the Yerba Mate Sector Chamber of Rio Grande do Sul, argues that tarefeiros come with technical knowledge about the plant and better preserve the physiology of the tree during leaf removal.
At the same time, the hiring environment in the countryside changed after the labor scandal involving grape harvesting in 2023.
That year, more than 200 workers were rescued from conditions analogous to slavery in Serra Gaúcha, and the incident led large wineries to strengthen temporary hiring under CLT after commitments made with the Public Labor Ministry.
In January 2025, another official operation rescued four Argentinians in São Marcos, showing that the problem has not disappeared, although the sector has increased pressure for formal links.
Postal states that Argentinians show less resistance to formal work, a characteristic that has become even more important in this new environment of oversight.
For employers, this helps fill seasonal vacancies with less legal risk.
For migrants, the CPF becomes the gateway to a formal employment contract, bank account, rental agreements, and a more stable presence during the harvest season.
Competitiveness of Yerba Mate and Regional Effects on the Border
The regulatory change also had implications for international competition.
Barreto assesses that Argentine yerba mate was losing ground to Brazilian products before deregulation and that the drop in the price of the raw material brought Argentine costs closer to those practiced in Brazil.
This adjustment, however, had an uneven effect: it may improve the competitiveness of part of the export chain but reduced income at the production base and accelerated the outflow of workers from Misiones.
Instead of migration driven by a single factor, what is being observed is a combination of price liberalization, compression of rural income, informal recruitment networks, and demand for labor in southern Brazil.
The result appears both in CPF statistics and in harvesting fronts, where the Argentine presence is no longer an exception but has become part of the seasonal work landscape in the region.
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