Poor Farmer

By Matt Goldman Yes! Weekly The coffee industry is now valued at $80 billion, making it one of the most lucrative commodities, second only to oil. Every day 2 billion lattes, mochas, cappuccinos and regular old cups of joe are served up worldwide. For many, coffee isn't just a morning pick me up, it's a lifestyle. In Trieste, Italy, where some of the best cups of coffee are made, baristas live by the mantra "wake up, smile... coffee." And people are willing to pay. A 16-ounce cup can go for as much as $4 at some corporate outfits. Ironically, in Sidama, Ethiopia, which supplies coffee beans to the prolific Starbucks Corp., growers on the verge of bankruptcy and famine are found literally praying for a fair price for their product. It's a staggering paradox. Tadessa Meskala, owner of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union, seeks to protect himself and his farmers from this blatant exploitation. The documentary Black Gold: Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, screened...

EIPO: New Website Provides Information on Ethiopia's Trademarking and Licensing Initiative CSRwire WASHINGTON, DC April, 9, 2007 Ethiopia’s Trademarking Initiative took an important step forward today with the launch of its dedicated website: www.ethiopiancoffeenetwork.com . "The aim of this initiative is to build a new form of partnership between Ethiopia and the coffee companies worldwide that sell our finest coffees - Sidamo, Yirgacheffe and Harar/Harrar. In this spirit, we invite you to join our network of licensed distributors, and we hope that the information provided in the Licensing Section gives you enough to start with the process," encouraged Getachew Mengistie, Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office. "Since late last year, Ethiopia's Trademarking Initiative has attracted literally thousands of articles, TV and radio coverage, and actions by more than 100,000 people who are direct supporters of Ethiopia. Yet amid this, sometimes it has been quite diffi...

By Daniel Gross Herald Tribune April 8, 2007 NEW YORK: On March 30, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board's New York office delivered a stinging accusation against one of the most popular retail outlets in the United States. The labor board charged that Starbucks, the ubiquitous coffee chain, had committed 30 violations of law in trying to ward off union activity at four outlets in the New York borough of Manhattan. This may be the latest salvo in a new kind of labor battle: union workers versus corporate do-gooders. The allegations that Starbucks fired employees who were supportive of unionization and threatened to fire others seem to conflict with the culture of a company that wears its conscience on its recyclable coffee-cup sleeves. "The NLRB's complaint illustrates that this is a company with a profound disrespect for workers' rights," said Daniel Gross (no relation to author), a union organizer who dished out frappuccinos and mocha lattes at Starbucks befo...

By Mary Jane Credeu Bloomberg April 5, 2007 Starbucks Corp. Chairman Howard Schultz says he can preserve the chain's coffee-house nature even as he adds seven new stores a day. ``This is really hard to do,'' Schultz said in an interview at the Seattle headquarters of the world's largest coffee-shop chain. ``And because very few people have done it before, they're out there waiting for us to fall.'' Schultz's concern about damaging what he calls ``the intimacy of the experience'' at Starbucks surfaced in February, when a memo he wrote was published in newspapers and on the Web. In it, he urged executives to re-think decisions such as using automatic espresso machines instead of having baristas draw shots by hand. He said such moves could lead to a ``watering down'' and ``commoditization.'' ``He's rightfully questioning things like whether the restrooms are clean, and how long the lines are,'' said Reed Bender, who helps...

Product is tasty, but labor is back-breaking Although there is no running water in Jimma. Ethiopia, and electricity arrived only recently, there is plenty of coffee for everyone. By Colleen Mastony / MCT Etho Online APRIL 4, 2007 JIMMA, Ethiopia — Inside the coffee plant's corrugated metal fence, men look more like mules as they lug 100-pound sacks of coffee on their backs. But as midday nears, a heavenly scent wafts from the corner, where Ahmed Achoumeto, 25, pounds a pile of black coffee beans in preparation for the noontime break. "I am terribly addicted. If I don't get coffee, I can't see properly," he said, standing barefoot in the dirt, grinding the beans with a primitive 3-foot-long wooden pestle and a mortar made of a hollowed tree stump. "Almost everyone here is addicted." Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee. And in this caffeine-addled corner of the world, coffee is a blessing and a curse swirled together in a cup. Amid the lush hills and mi...

UPDATE ~ Starbucks’ infamous video was brought down yesterday. The message on YouTube says: “This video has been removed by the user." Starbucks Senior VP Dub Hay said on the video that Ethiopia's coffee trademark attempts are illegal. Bob Winter of Arnold and Porter LLP responded, also on YouTube , saying that Hay's claim was totally absurd. The company never admitted its mistakes publicly except the comment on YouTube which read, “When we posted that video we felt the information was correct & since we've learned a lot & realized the information about the legality of the trademark was not accurate.” -------------- Starbucks Met Ethiopian Ambassador, No Agreement Again The Ethiopian Ambassador to Washington, Samuel Assefa was in Seattle yesterday to meet senior Starbucks' executives, it w as learned. Credible sources confirmed that the meeting between Starbucks and the Ambassador took place here in Seattle yesterday, April 3, but no specific agreeme...

Tarjei Kidd Olsen Inter Press Service News Agency April 3, 2007 OSLO, Norway (IPS) - Ethiopia is looking to trademark coffees in the EU to benefit its poor farmers, in the face of opposition from Starbucks in the U.S. The Ethiopian move provides lessons for an African market that could be worth billions of dollars. Coffee originated in Ethiopia today accounts for significant exports. Yet, in Ethiopian regions such as Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe, familiar names to coffee fans around the world, coffee farmers live in abject poverty. Most Ethiopians earn less than two dollars a day, and coffee farmers receive only a fraction of the price that their prestigious coffee fetches in cafés and shops in the developed world. The Ethiopian government filed applications in 2005 to trademark Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe as coffee brands in the European Union, Canada, Japan and the U.S. "Ethiopia wants more control over the distribution of fine coffee. Ultimately prices will get better,"...