Poor Farmer

Starbucks does not know when it will open a support center for coffee farmers in Ethiopia that was scheduled to open last year, according to spokeswoman Deb Trevino. The economic slowdown, along with delays in opening a more regionally-focused center in Rwanda last year, have "made it challenging for us to move as quickly as we would like," she said in an e-mail. "We remain committed to opening a Farmer Support Center in Addis, but do not have an opening date to announce at this time." More here Starbucks Opens Delayed Farmer Support Center in Rwanda By Melissa Allison The Seattle Times June 26, 2009 Starbucks will officially open a farmer support center in Rwanda on Monday. When it initially announced plans for support centers in Rwanda and Ethiopia in late 2007, both were scheduled to open in 2008. The Ethiopian support center has not opened. Like Starbucks' support center in Costa Rica, which opened in 2004, the Rwandan center will work with farmers, expor...

Ethiopia Earned $21 Million From Seized Coffee, Walta Reports By Jason McLure Bloomberg June 10, 2009 Ethiopia’s government earned about $21 million from the sale of coffee it seized from private merchants in March, the Walta Information Center reported, citing the Ministry of Agriculture. The government seized 18,000 metric tons of coffee from six of the country’s largest private exporters after accusing them of stockpiling the beans, the news service said. The government exported 10,361 tons of coffee itself and sold the remainder to other private exporters in Ethiopia, Walta added. To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net ---------- CP: Below is the news article posted on Walta Information Center ---------- Ethiopian coffee export scoring promising result: MoARD Addis Ababa, June 9 (WIC) - The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) announced that the revenue the nation is getting form coffee expo...

Coffee buyers not happy with Ethiopian Commodity Exchange By Desalegn Sisay AFRIK.COM June 06, 2009 Foreign buyers of Ethiopian special coffee beans have expressed their concern over the introduction of a new auctioning system related to the trading of coffee beans at the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX). The system was introduced in December 2008. Prior to the introduction of the new trading system by the Ethiopian government, exporters had the right to buy their preferred beans from any supplier of their choice. However, they now have to compete with other exporters to get their beans. A recent delinkage of exporters with their buyers in Europe and United States has been blamed on this factor. Exporters are now expressing their discontentment over the new trading system. In the month of may this year the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) in a letter to Prime Minster Meles Zenawi, expressed the difficulty in obtaining its usual special brands of coffee due to the new tr...