Poor Farmer

www.ethiomedia.com By Wondwossen Mezlekia, Seattle Novemeber 13, 2006 Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, and Starbucks, the world’s Specialty coffee giant, dominated headlines of the major media outlets in an uncanny coming together. The controversy over Ethiopia’s trademark application for its finest coffees was brought to the public’s attention by Oxfam, a non-profit, anti-poverty organization after several months of unsuccessful attempts to convince Starbucks to lift its block on Ethiopia’s application to own its coffee names. Starbucks swears its hands are not behind the bump on the trademark process but refused to talk about it despite repeated calls by Ethiopia and Oxfam. It took a good deal of pressure from consumers responding to calls by Oxfam to bring Starbucks to the table, and even when it did so, it came with strings and excuses that lead to nowhere. The Ethiopian Fine Coffee Trademark Licensing Initiative, a project funded in part by the UK’s Department for International...

Information on this page may change without a notice --------------- -- Coffee is one of the most valuable products in world trade, in many years second in value only to oil as a source of foreign exchange to developing countries. -- A mature coffee tree will produce 1 to 11/2 pounds of coffee per growing season. It takes 2,000 hand-picked Arabica coffee cherries to make a roasted pound of coffee -- or approximately 4,000 beans. -- Brazil produces about one-third of the coffee in the world, twice as much as Colombia and Vietnam, which vie for second position. Indonesia, Mexico, India, Guatemala and Ethiopia are also major producers. -- In 2000, the United States imported 21-million bags (132 pounds each) of coffee. The largest suppliers were Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Vietnam and Guatemala. The total value was $1.7-billion. -- 52 percent of the adult population of the United States over 18 years of age drinks coffee every day. -- Americans drink some 300-million cups of coffee a day, co...