Poor Farmer

Starbucks believes that the company deserves a credit for being one of the biggest Fair Trade coffee purchasers in North America. I agree the company has taken some steps in the right direction but the fact that Fair Trade makes up only less than 6 per cent of its annual coffee purchases is outrageous. The company's video released on YouTube - the new battleground - once again featured Mr. Dub Hay who failed to explain why the company prides itself for purchasing infinitesimally small amount of Fair Trade certified coffees while over 94 per cent of its purchases are still unfairly traded. There is a big difference between a fair price and aid or a tip, you know. The farmers who grow the best coffees in the world still continue to live under severe poverty whereas Starbucks sells these coffees for $26 per pound. Yet, the company insists that we should feel good about drinking Starbucks. CAFE or not, the farmers' question is for Starbucks to pay for the coffee it brews - a pric...

It is quite fascinating to see giant corporations, whom we perceive as untouchable, sometimes act like human beings. Personally, nothing captivates me more, in this automated corporate world, than feeling the honest human characters behind the amorphous structures operating in robotic styles and boring façades. And that is one of the good things I see in Starbucks; the fact that the company sometimes acts like a natural person – age doesn’t matter. Here is one such act – an act anyone you know might do. Last week, Black Gold movie’s opening in Los Angeles was announced through postings on several websites including here on Coffee Politics . As reported here , Starbucks issued what it calls a rumor response on January 12, 2007. By the way, I don’t see how a gossip retains its status as a rumor after making it all the way to an official website. Any ways, the response accused Black Gold by saying, “the film incompletely represents the work Starbucks is doing to address this (“ this” ref...

By Wondwossen Mezlekia Ethiopia is mentioned many times in Starbucks’ dictionary than in the Bible (where it is cited over 38 times by both Old and New Testaments.) Until recently, company websites and the tiny blackboards hanging in the stores used to rightly feature Ethiopia as the origin of coffee. Lately, however, the company’s coffee education web pages appear to be receding and incoherently abandoning any reference to Ethiopia. Starbucks’ love affair with the name Ethiopia seems to have come to a halt with the origin of coffee renamed as a broader region in the continent. Today, there are three versions of coffee history adapted by Starbucks’ English language websites. The website for North America looks at the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea as the source of coffee: “The first coffee plants are said to have come from the Horn of Africa on the shores of the Red Sea. Originally, coffee beans were taken as a food and not as a beverage. East African tribes would grind the coffee cher...

On January 12, 2007, immediately following this public announcement published on Coffee Politics regarding the opening of Black Gold movie in Los Angeles , Starbucks issued what it calls a rumor response and accused Black Gold for not representing Starbucks' side ofthe story. Starbucks said, "the film incompletely represents the work Starbucks is doing to address this issue. " Today, Black Gold responded with a strong Press Release. Following is the full text of the release: PRESS STATEMENT, LONDON, January 13th 2007 For Immediate Use STARBUCKS REACTS TO LOS ANGELES OPENING OF CONTROVERSIAL COFFEE FILM BLACK GOLD The $6 billion coffee giant Starbucks accused the Black Gold filmmakers of “incompletely” representing the work of the company, as the critically-acclaimed film opened in Los Angeles last night. Black Gold is the first feature-length documentary to be made about the $80 billion global coffee industry. The company was so concerned by the impact of the film, th...

Black Gold , the famous documentary movie on (Un-) Fair Trade screens in Los Angeles tonight, Friday, January 12, 2007. Venue Laemmle Grande 4-Plex 3 45 S. Figueroa St. Downtown Los Angeles Show times Friday Jan 12: 5:30pm 7:40pm 9:45pm Saturday Jan 13: 1:10pm 3:20pm 5:30pm 7:40pm 9:45pm Sunday Jan 14: 1:10pm 3:20pm 5:30pm 7:40pm 9:45pm For screening dates in other cities, click here . You can also read reviews here . Read this commentary written following the film's screening in Seattle.

Recommendations on empowering individual coffee farmers as stakeholders Looking ahead, the success of the coffee Intellectual Property (IP) protection project as a development tool highly depends on the effectiveness of the project's implementation. Unless the project, which is striving to go through the phases of building and capturing values associated with Ethiopia’s coffee brands, directly benefits individual coffee farmers , it bears the risk of perpetuating the unfair trade practices where only the middlemen take the lion’s share of the higher prices to be realized over time. On paper, the stated objective of the government’s trade marking and licensing project is to enhance and manage the rights associated with the country’s coffee marks “for the benefit of, and in collaboration with, up to 4 million Ethiopians engaged in the production and supply of coffees covered by the marks as represented by farmer cooperatives and other organized stakeholders in the Ethiopian coffee se...

As reported in this commentary, Ethiopia wants to achieve recognition for its trademark rights through either voluntary acceptance or federal registrations. [New comers to the story, visit The Dispute at a Glance on the side bar of this page.] The voluntary acceptance of Ethiopia’s trademark rights calls for Starbucks and other coffee importers to first acknowledge the country’s ownership of the coffee names Harar, Sidamo, and Yirgacheffe and then sign a Licensing Agreement. This is the least expensive option for a poor country as Ethiopia. Despite the high hopes by many that international corporations who have been advertising themselves as development partners for such countries as Ethiopia would cheer the voluntary Licensing Agreement, this option faced a blow when Starbucks, the world’s coffee giant, opposed to it. Starbucks’ opposition came as a surprise as it does not equate with what the company claims to have stood for. This triggered a public call by Oxfam and over 90,000 cons...