Amid growing threats to gender equality in Argentina, women in Misiones are reviving artisanal tea production – and reshaping rural power structures in the process. Can these green, female-led ventures thrive in a hostile political climate? Journalist Cecilia Fernández Castañon, tells the story in this piece created with a Gender Equity Reporting Grant from the Latin American Solutions Journalism Fund, an initiative of El Colectivo 506, thanks to a donation from the Solutions Journalism Network and the Hewlett Foundation. It was published by elDiarioAR in Spanish and it was translated to English and published by Fair Planet, on May 8, 2025. Both publications were adapted for republishing.
In Misiones, one of Argentina’s most biodiverse provinces, a group of women are sustaining a tradition that began more than a century ago: artisanal tea production. With careful, environmentally conscious techniques, they guide each stage of the process – from the precise harvesting of leaves to the attentive drying that shapes the tea’s aroma and quality – while creating new job opportunities and sources of meaningful employment.
But the results these entrepreneurs are achieving aren’t simply the product of individual effort. They reflect a broader push by various organisations to tackle a pressing challenge in this province – and across Argentina: advancing practices and policies that address gender inequality in agriculture.
It is estimated that more than 30 per cent of Misiones’ population lives in rural areas. At the same time, the province is located in the region of the country with the highest rates of poverty and inequality. For the women in these communities, the challenges are twofold: securing their families’ survival under difficult conditions while pushing for recognition in a workforce that has long sidelined their contributions.
Artisanal tea production has emerged as an alternative that not only creates green jobs that support environmental sustainability, but also opens pathways for women’s professional development in rural areas, with women leading more than half of all operations, either as producers or tea blenders. This shift has been recognised by Mujeres Rurales Argentinas (MRA), a civil association that has grown steadily in recent years into a platform for exchange, training, and visibility, bringing together women from across the country to support and amplify their roles in rural development.
In a country where gender-focused policies are in retreat, the role of organisations like MRA has become increasingly vital as they a lifeline for initiatives that equip women with the tools to continue pushing for equal opportunities in rural areas. Their impact extends further into the public sphere, where it has helped advance women-oriented projects within government, including the Gender Cabinet of Misiones’ Ministry of Agriculture and Production.
From invisibility to leadership
Women’s path to leadership in rural enterprises has been anything but easy. Studies conducted in Misiones reveal that for much of the province’s productive history, women’s contributions to rural labour were largely overlooked and undervalued.
Women were only acknowledged for their agency and labour roles in the 1990s, and even then, primarily through journalistic publications, said Diana Haugg, historian and professor at the National University of Misiones. Her doctoral research focuses on gender studies, with a particular emphasis on women’s participation in the cultivation of yerba mate in Misiones.
During her research, she noticed that men were the protagonists in this history. “Women appeared in the documents in a tangential way or were only mentioned in passing. They appeared with negative characteristics, as prostitutes or as the cause of men’s problems or overspending. They were not recognised as workers,” she added.
Although women have long worked alongside men in rural areas, gaining recognition and equal opportunities remains a persistent challenge. It was this concern that, in 2019, led a group of women to begin gathering to discuss issues often overlooked by other rural associations.
“It began as a space for catharsis among women who were involved in trade union activities in the rural sector,” said Patricia Gorza, current president of MRA. “When we got together, we realised that there were a lot of issues that were important to us, often related to our daily work, but that were not on the agenda of traditional institutions.”
The movement grew organically through word of mouth and saw a surge in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown: what began as a group of 30 members at the start of the year grew to over 400 by year’s end. Riding that momentum, the group formalised their efforts and became a legally recognised civil association in 2022.
At the time, amid a favourable social and political climate for feminist organising in Argentina, MRA established itself as a vital gathering space that offers training, political advocacy and recognitions that honour the contributions of women in rural work. Its inclusive approach brings together “artisans, waged workers, subsistence producers, teachers, advisors, market gardeners, farmers, journalists, cattle ranchers, family producers, dairy farmers, micro-entrepreneurs and students,” according to the group’s website.
As a result, women from diverse fields began to engage with the challenges posed by rural work and respond to its demands. One such example is Josefina Pividori, a communications specialist at the Ministry of Agriculture and Production of the Province of Misiones and a member of Mujeres Rurales Argentinas.
Since 2022, Pividori has coordinated the Gender Cabine, a space she helped establish alongside other women at the Ministry of Agriculture of Misiones who were motivated by the issues and discussions emerging from MRA. Its goal is to mainstream a gender perspective across the institution’s operations and integrate it into all five of its sub-secretariats, which oversee a wide range of productive sectors including forestry, plant cultivation and animal production.
In addition to this goal, the Cabinet is working to secure dedicated budget lines aimed at increasing women’s participation in decision-making spaces across the production chains.
Beyond these actions, the Cabinet also operates on a discursive level, aiming not only to promote policies and initiatives for women but to recognise the multiplicity of roles that women in rural areas occupy, Pividori explained. Women, she said, are the backbone of the domestic economy – both productive and reproductive. “They’re not only the ones milking cows or harvesting lettuce and tobacco, but also the health workers, the teachers who walk miles to ensure children’s right to education, the entrepreneurs on the farms and the businesswomen who add value by producing cheese or tea for export.”
Adding value to an ancestral crop
Among the many fields where women in rural Misiones are active, tea cultivation stands out as a growing area of participation. According to a report by the provincial Ministry of Agriculture reviewed by FairPlanet, more than 50 per cent of the establishments producing loose-leaf tea and artisanal blends are led by women – either as producers or tea blenders.
After water, tea is the most consumed beverage in the world – and Argentina is the leading producer in the Americas. Ninety per cent of the country’s tea is grown in Misiones, where the first crops were planted in the 1920s and South America’s first tea factory was established in the 1940s.
More than 90 per cent of Argentina’s tea production is exported. In recent years, gourmet tea ventures have gained popularity by reviving ancestral techniques and adopting agroecological practices to produce higher-quality blends. Among them is Akasha Tea, a brand founded by agricultural engineer Adriana Yañez, who cultivates tea on 40 hectares in the town of Leandro N. Alem. In 2024, she was honoured by Mujeres Rurales Argentinas with a value-added award at the first International Forum on Gender and Rurality.
Adriana Yañez shared that, as in most rural sectors, the world of tea is far from easy for women. “Most of the producers are men; it is a very masculinised environment and it is difficult for women to get our place respected,” she said. “We have to be always taking triple exams, let’s say. We have to be the hardest working, the smartest, the most intelligent, the best at everything just to be accepted in the industry.”
Irma Fraga, who runs an artisanal tea business in Campo Viera, agrees that rural work poses challenges for women, but notes that recent years have brought meaningful change. “As the girls are studying and training, they have more tools to defend their place and their rights,” she said.
According to a report by the Gender Cabinet of Misiones’ Ministry of Agriculture, rural women have increasingly participated in the Ministry’s training programmes in recent years. In some sectors, such as fruit and vegetable production, they now outnumber men – making up 52 per cent of all participants.
According to the Cabinet, a key factor behind this increase was the intentional planning of activities around the schedules that allow women producers to attend without compromising their caregiving responsibilities. Additionally, outreach played a role: invitations were extended explicitly to both women and men producers, which helped to ensure more inclusive participation.
Training activities have become essential in equipping more and more women with the tools to enhance their production and expand into new fields. In the case of gourmet tea, one of the key challenges lies in adopting cultivation techniques that meet certification standards.
“In our case, our process is completely agro-ecological, and we are in the process of obtaining international certification, but it is a complex process that costs a lot of money,” said Fraga, whose company operates under the name Doña Irma.
In the province of Misiones, only seven of the 38 certified organic primary producers recorded in 2023 were women – less than 20 per cent, according to a report by the Ministry of Agriculture. Of the 21 certified processing operators listed, just one was a woman.
For Irma, gourmet tea started as a hobby alongside the various farming activities she carried out with her family. But the project has steadily grown, and her team now includes four people who manage each stage of the artisanal process. “The first part of the harvest is done manually and then the different stages of drying and packaging,” she explained.
The Ministry of Agriculture of Misiones states that it remains committed to promoting a shift in the productive model – one that prioritises the protection of biodiversity and natural resources like water and soil. In line with this approach, the Ministry’s Gender Cabinet supports and encourages organic certification processes across various enterprises.
Gender Policy with a Broader Lens
The Gender Cabinet of the Ministry of Agriculture and Production of Misiones was established in April 2022 with a deliberately mixed composition, including two representatives (one male and one female) from each sub-secretariat, as well as a coordinator. This structure, as explained by Josefina Pividori, coordinator of the Cabinet and member of MRA, did not come about by chance, but as a conscious strategy to avoid the space being perceived as exclusively for women.
“The purpose was to create a space representative of all areas of the ministry, where both men and women would feel involved and committed to the integration of the gender perspective in the policies and actions of the agricultural sector,” she explained. This approach aimed to overcome the limitation that is often observed in other gender spaces, where the discussion and search for solutions falls mainly on women interested in the issue.
This strategy was considered a success, as it has generated significant changes in the perspectives and views of the technicians who work directly in the field. ‘Now they no longer automatically assume that the man is in charge of the rural establishment or of production when they arrive for a visit, they ask who is in charge of what in order to identify who they need to talk to, says the coordinator of the Cabinet.
This transformation is evidence of how the inclusion of male voices in the Gender Cabinet has contributed to a broader awareness within the ministry, promoting a more equal approach in the interaction with rural families and producers. By not perceiving it as a women’s issue, it has led to an opening and stronger commitment from the technical teams, avoiding that the work of the cabinet is perceived as an additional burden only for women working in the Ministry.
This experience of the Misiones Gender Cabinet presents itself as a valuable learning for other agencies and institutions working on gender issues. The strategy of creating mixed spaces can be key to promoting greater inclusion and a more comprehensive understanding of gender inequalities.
Gender Justice in a Hostile Climate
In a global climate shaped by the rise of far-right governments, sustaining gender-focused policies has become increasingly difficult. For Patricia Gorza of MRA, the greatest challenge today is preserving the momentum of gender advocacy in a society facing a growing backlash against women.
“The influence of figures such as Donald Trump and Javier Milei, whose governments generate a climate in which gender agendas are susceptible to being cancelled in various spaces, represent an ideological regression and a direct threat to the progress achieved and to the continuity of policies aimed at promoting equality,” said Gorza, the president and co-founder of the civil association.
Resilience and collective articulation, Gorza noted, are crucial strategies for confronting this hostile landscape and ensuring that the fight for equality in rural communities continues to move forward.
“Mutual empowerment between civil society organisations and government sectors that are still committed to gender equality is fundamental,” she said. “Another alternative is to establish international alliances to seek funding and support in countries where the gender agenda remains a priority.”
The experience in Misiones, where a mixed Gender Cabinet was established by ministerial resolution to integrate a cross-cutting gender perspective, offers a valuable case study in how organic, well-implemented initiatives can persist and generate real change, even in adverse conditions.
“Rural women have to work together, not shrink in the face of challenges, and remain determined,” reflected Adriana Yañez. She stressed the importance of training as a tool for empowerment, adding that through collective effort and perseverance, rural women will continue to leave a lasting mark on the future.
The rise of artisanal tea in Misiones – now led by women producing gourmet, agroecological blends under fair labour conditions – shows how such local initiatives can generate green jobs, promote sustainability and improve livelihoods for rural women across the region.
