Yerba Madre, a yerba mate beverage company, and Guyra Paraguay, a conservation nonprofit, are promoting shade-grown yerba mate to help restore South America’s Atlantic Forest and support rural communities. Drawing on traditional cultivation methods, they encourage growing yerba mate beneath the forest canopy rather than in industrial monocultures. The two organizations first partnered in 2007, and Guayakí’s model helped inspire Guyra’s now-independent initiative in Paraguay.
Yerba Madre is a certified B Corporation and 100 percent of their yerba mate is Regenerative Organic Certified. “Our mission has always been rooted in the visionary idea that yerba mate can regenerate both people and planet,” Rocio Bermudez-Pose, a Senior Manager of Impact at Yerba Madre tells Food Tank.
The yerba mate tree is native to the Atlantic Forest, which covers swaths of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. Tea made from the yerba mate leaves is a cultural and economic staple of the region, and Indigenous communities have long cultivated the plant in the shade of the forest ecosystem. Today, it is often grown under the sun in intensive monocultures sprayed with agrochemicals, according to Guyra.
Inspired by their work with Yerba Madre, Guyra launched their own shade-grown yerba mate initiative in 2016. Their work, which is supported by funding from the Darwin Initiative, focuses on the San Rafael region of Paraguay.
Both organizations help producers transition to shade-grown methods by providing tools, training, and fair-trade market access. They also support producers who are already growing yerba mate under shade.
“By cultivating shade-grown mate—either in remnant forests or within agroforestry systems—we’re helping to conserve what’s left of this fragile biome and actively restore what’s been lost,” Bermudez-Pose tells Food Tank. According to the World Wildlife Fund, more than 88 percent of the Atlantic Forest’s original area has been deforested, largely to make way for intensive agricultural production of soy, timber, and cattle.
One of Yerba Madre’s longest running partnerships is with the Aché Kue Tuvy Indigenous community in Paraguay.
Fabiana Pose, Vice President of South America at Yerba Madre describes the “powerful transformation” they have witnessed over their 20 years of partnership with the Aché Kue Tuvy. “Producing an export-quality product brings a deep sense of pride and has allowed the community to reinvest in local projects and initiatives,” she says.
With the profits, the community invested in a new well and water filtration system to secure a safe water supply. Additional financing from Yerba Madre, the World Bank, and the Paraguay Ministry of Agriculture also allowed the community to install a new yerba mate processing facility that increased their efficiency twelve-fold.
Pose says that the project has become self-sustaining thanks to the community’s own plant nursery, which produces 40,000 yerba mate seedlings annually.
The company lifts up what it calls Market Driven Regeneration™, which refers to “reversing the flow of capital from philanthropy and donations to truly integrating impact into the business model by providing sustainable sources of income for the people behind our yerba mate and other ingredients,” says Bermudez-Pose. This aspirational business model aims to apply “the principles of regeneration across the company’s entire operation and supply web.”
Guyra concentrates its efforts in the second largest remaining fragment of the Paraguayan Atlantic Forest. They partner with 137 rural families and two Mbya Guaraní Indigenous communities—around 500 people—to plant yerba mate trees in degraded forest areas alongside other native tree and plant species.
“One of the very important things has been the dignification of the work of the peasant producer to improve working conditions. It is not the same to be working in a monoculture field with agrochemicals as to be working in a forest with shade free of poisonous chemicals,” Rodrigo Zárate, Head of Conservation at Guyra, tells Food Tank.
According to the U.N. International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), 63 percent of Indigenous children were living in extreme poverty in 2022, compared to 8.5 percent of children overall. Zárate says that poverty has forced some farmers to resort to illegal activities—namely the cultivation of marijuana.
As an alternative, Guyra helps producers earn an income not only through yerba mate cultivation, but through cultivation of other products like petitgrain (an essential oil) and medicinal herbs. They provide seedlings and technical and financial support, strengthening the capacity of farmers to organize and negotiate with buyers for the best fair price. With the support of Guyra, at least 45 farms have diversified their incomes with these products.
Zárate says that while Guyra has helped organic producer associations get on their feet, “[the producers] have walked and built it on their own.” Today, Zárate says, the children of the producers are managing the finances.
Both Guyra and Yerba Madre are working to scale up their impact. “We’re committed to advancing conservation and restoration efforts beyond our own supply chain, helping bring more global attention to the Atlantic Forest—one of the most threatened yet overlooked ecosystems on Earth,” Bermudez-Pose tells Food Tank. Guyra aims to scale their reach from 137 families to 500 by 2050.
“At the heart of this vision are thriving, prosperous, and empowered communities—especially family farmers and Indigenous and other historically marginalized or underrepresented peoples,” says Bermudez-Pose. “When more people have the power to steward their land, protect their culture, and build generational livelihoods, we all benefit.”
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Photo courtesy of Yerba Madre
