Poor Farmer

Nyeri Coffee Farmers Rage at Starbucks Officials Starbucks officials made a stop over in Kenya last week to visit the progress of the Kenya Heartland Coffee project, which is aimed at helping Kenyan farmers to improve their coffees’ quality and production. Jim Donald, CEO and other senior Starbucks officers’ visit to Kenya followed the failed talks with the government in Ethiopia regarding the coffee trademark dispute. The report by Moses Njagih and agencies said that "angry farmers from a coffee factory in Nyeri District have blasted officials of the Starbucks Coffee Company for refusing to respond to their questions on a project the multinational is undertaking in the area.” The Standard quoted Mr John Kabira, a farmer as saying, "Starbucks interests are only in making profits from our coffee, and yet they are not even mindful about our welfare." Read the news here .

Throughout this public dispute over Ethiopia’s move to trademark the country’s best coffee names, Starbucks’ position has been to refrain from discussing the issue publicly. As a result, those who have attempted to listen to Starbucks’ points of views are puzzled because the only information available to the public is through the press releases where Starbucks insists its hands are not behind the blocking of Ethiopia’s application. The company does not even talk about what it knows as an influential member of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA). The following statement issued on August 08, 2006 by the SCAA and which should be familiar to Starbucks explains why Ethiopia’s first application to register the name “Yirgacheffe” was accepted in the US while the applications for “Harar” and “Sidamo” have been blocked: ” Apparently, the Yirgacheffe examining attorney had not concluded the word “Yirgacheffe” was generic and merely descriptive, which had been the case with the “H...

Aaron Glantz of OneWorld US , a non profit global network for information on international issues, exemplified the dispute over Ethiopia’s application to trademark its best-known coffees as being over the disparity between an average income per day in Ethiopia and the cost of a Latte in the rest of the world. “Human rights groups accuse Starbucks of trying to stop Ethiopia from trademarking its best-known coffee beans Sidamo and Harar, thereby denying farmers potential income of more than $90 million a year,” said One World US whereas “Fair trade advocates look at the dispute as a clash between David and Goliath. In Starbucks, they see a $6.4 billion giant with more than 10,000 stores in 37 countries; in Ethiopia, they see the impoverished, hillside farmers of Ethiopia's premium coffee-growing regions.” According to the online network, Starbucks refused to be interviewed for the story. The company preferred to issue an electronic statement. The documentary movie, Black Gold also ...

By anonymous contributor I have recently been following the news on the coffee branding war between the Ethiopian government and the US coffee giant Starbucks Corporation, which was fueled by the involvement of other third party blowers like Oxfam and may be the World bank, if not in an official capacity It is a paradox for me to see the Ethiopian government pursuing this law suit while it self is the one who systematically exploits the poor. The poverty stricken poor coffee farmers whom Oxfam claims to be their friend, pay taxes to sustain the life of this government, whereas others freely enjoy the cream of their labor, and still not enough, those gluttons are looking for every venue deem to generate more to fill their deep barrel. Very unfortunate! As many studies indicate the Ethiopian coffee farmer gets 6-10% of the retail price of his/her product. Is this the fair share? Is this just? Absolutely not! Hence, any attempt to the solution of this problem would have been more benevole...

ACTION Starbucks, Stop Usurping Ethiopia's Cultural Heritage Friday, December 01 2006 @ 07:08 AM PST Contributed by: WorkerFreedom The meeting of Starbucks' CEO with Ethiopia's Prime Minister has not changed the company's mind on a licensing agreement which respects the cultural heritage of coffee farmers. Starbucks says the coffee farmers don't need the licensing agreement just like baristas don't need a union- because the company is already so magnanimous. Tell that to coffee farmers living in brutal poverty and baristas struggling to make ends meet often without health care. More information about the proposed agreement is available on Oxfam's website: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/campaigns/coffee/starbucks . E-Mail Action: Tell Starbucks to Sign Ethiopian Coffee Farmer Agreement and Respect Right to Organize. Please take a moment to register your distaste for this extreme corporate greed from Starbucks: http://starbucksunion.org/node/1127

IMPORTANT! How’s Xmas celebrated in the coffee growing regions? Click here and add yours on the map. Also, if you would like it published here, leave your comments with a copy of your story at poorfarmer@gmail.com . You can also create a personalized E-card and send it on to friends.

At least, conceptually. Mary Crane asks on the Forbes, “So when your social responsibility agenda makes your company a target, is continuing your CSR program worth the headache?” Keith Slack of Oxfam sees it differently on Putting Teeth in Corporate Social Responsibility . “Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a fashionable, if not particularly well-defined, term in recent years.”, Keith said adding, “A key component of the general discourse around CSR has been so-called multi-stakeholder initiatives, which bring together corporations, governments, and non-governmental organizations to talk about and in some cases develop mechanisms for addressing, particular areas of concern.” Keith thinks the voluntary CSR initiatives are toothless and thus “lack any real enforcement mechanism for sanctioning corporations that fail to comply with the principles or standards promoted by the initiatives.” ” Putting teeth into CSR is a challenge. Incentivizing lenders and purchasers to car...