Starbucks stirred by fair trade film as Ethiopia launches fair trade campaign

Addis Ababa, January 29, 2007 (WIC) – Ethiopia has launched its campaign of securing a fair price for its internationally famous varieties of coffee in London today,the Guardian Unlimited reported.

The campaign was launched while Taddese Meskella,spokesman for the east African country's impoverished coffee growers,met British Prime Minister Tony Blair.


Taddese’s meeting with Blair will be accompanied by a screening of the film Black Gold - a movie on the global coffee industry - to MPs at Westminster,who will also be addressed by the Ethiopian ambassador to Britain.

The spokesman,Tadesse Meskela, who is the subject of Black Gold,together with the film's English makers, brothers Nick and Marc Francis,are a serious irritant to some of the world's coffee giants - in particular Seattle-based Starbucks, whose annual turnover of $7.8bn (£4bn) is not much lower than Ethiopia's entire gross domestic product,the newspaper said.

Taddese runs the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union,representing about 105,000 coffee growers,and struggles to get the best price - although it is nowhere near high enough to earn them a decent living.

He said the country's premium coffees - Yirgacheffe, Sidamo and Harar - can sell for fair trade export at about $1.60 a pound. After deducting costs, the growers get about $1.10. Roasters can sell the coffee on at $20-26 per pound. Coffee retailers make about 52 espressos from a pound of coffee, worth up to $160 a pound.

"This ratio needs to change," Taddese told the Guardian during a visit to London. "Our people are barefoot, have no school, no clean water or health centre.They are living hand to mouth.We need $4 a pound minimum,that's only fair."

Black Gold shows malnourished coffee growers depending on handouts of food from the United States to stave off starvation.The documentary has already been released in the US and goes on general release in Britain in April.

But what of Starbucks,who are opening about 2,000 cafes a year and have put messages on their website saying Black Gold "incompletely represents the work Starbucks is doing"?

"Starbucks may help bring clear water for one community but this does not solve the problem.In 2005, Starbucks' aid to the third world was $1.5m.We don't want this kind of support,we just want a better price.They make huge profits; giving us just one payment of money does not help," said Tadesse.

He already has the backing of Ed Balls,economic secretary to the Treasury.Balls said: "Delivering trade justice is not just morally right,it is an economic necessity for Tadesse and the farmers.

"We urgently need the WTO talks to start again so that we can make good our promise to deliver trade justice for Tadesse and millions of others in the world's poorest countries."

Starbucks told the Guardian it is paying premium prices to farmers in poor countries,well above the average market price.The pictures of smiling Ethiopians in its cafes,however,belie the reality shown in Black Gold.

Source: Walta Information Center