Poor Farmer

By Philip Ngunjiri Nation Media December 23, 2007 IT IS THE YEAR 2005, AND A COFfee farmer somewhere in the highlands of Ethiopia is saying he has uprooted his coffee crop to replace it with khat (miraa). Reason: He can get a comparatively higher price for the latter, compared with the low price he is getting for coffee. Fast forward to 2006 and you are at the New York Board of Trade, a commodity trading floor in New York City, in the US, where the international benchmark price of coffee is set each business day based on weather, supply and demand. These are scenes from Black Gold, an award winning documentary. The film contrasts the enormous power and wealth of the multinational coffee companies with the plight of poor Ethiopian coffee farmers as they struggles for a better life. The documentary explores the effects of international prices (which by 2006 were at an all-time low) on coffee growers. As the film unfolds, it is evident that despite the global coffee market being worth b...

Starbucks Corporation Chairman and Chief Global Strategist, Howard Schultz, came to visit Ethiopia a few months after his company signed a deal with Ethiopia recognising the trademark right the latter has over three of its coffee varieties. He met with Ethiopian authorities, including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and gave a lecture on balancing "business with benevolence" on Friday, November 30, 2007, at the Sheraton Addis. In all these, neither Mr. Schulz nor Ethiopian authorities have revealed the content of the agreement they have signed, observes Shlomo Bachrach. Employed by Ethiopia's trademarks advisor, LightYears IP, and resigning before the Starbucks negotiations began, Mr. Bachrach has a lot more questions than answers. - Addis Fortune By Shlomo Bachrach Addis Fortune December 2, 2007 Starbucks deserves full recognition for its announcement of a proposed Farmer Support Centre to be established in Addis Abeba. When completed, it will represent tangible compensatio...

Starbucks Press Release CSRwire December 1, 2007 KIGALI, RWANDA and SEATTLE - Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) chairman Howard Schultz announced today that the company will open a regional Starbucks Farmer Support Center in Rwanda. The facility will provide an opportunity for Starbucks to collaborate with farmers in Rwanda and in the East Africa region, and demonstrates the company's continued support for their efforts to expand the availability of their high quality, specialty coffee worldwide. "We are very excited to have a regional Starbucks Farmer Support Center here in Rwanda. We look forward to working with Starbucks to offer additional support to the coffee farming community here and in the neighboring countries," said Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda. "This center will offer many new opportunities to enhance our methods and produce even greater volumes of our high quality specialty coffees." The Rwandan center, like the one announced earlier thi...