By seeking the right to control its most famous coffee trademarks—Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe—Ethiopia aims to work with the worldwide coffee industry to build the value of its coffee ‘brands’ and give its farmers a greater share of the retail value of their coffees. Coffee is among the most valuable commodities in Ethiopia, one of the world’s poorest countries, and these rights could help lift farmers and their families out of poverty.
“Starbucks continues to break its promises to the poorest communities,” said Seth Petchers, coffee lead in Oxfam International’s Make Trade Fair campaign.“The company has branded itself as a friend to poor farmers. But when these farmers seek the right to own their coffee brands and compete in the global market on an even playing field, Starbucks refuses to support them.”
In mid-February, Starbucks issued a joint release with the government of Ethiopia stating that the company would no longer stand in the country’s way to obtain trademarks. However, since that meeting, Starbucks has balked at signing a voluntary licensing agreement and has refused to engage in good-faith discussions with Ethiopia about the trademarking initiative.
Ethiopia has continued to garner support for this project, most recently from the deputy secretary-general of the twenty-member Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa at the East Africa Fine Coffees Association meeting in Addis Ababa last month. Ethiopian farmers, in a recent statement from the Ethiopian Fine Coffee Farmers Cooperative Unions and Exporters, accused Starbucks of dodging the real issues and encouraged the coffee chain to sign the licensing agreement.
In a Valentine’s Day memo to staff leaked to the public in February, Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz stated that changes that have come with rapid growth and success also, “have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience.” Earlier this month, Schultz told Fortune magazine that "Starbucks is the quintessential people-based business... Everything we do is about humanity."
“If Starbucks is seriously committed to humanity, it needs to change its position and agree to negotiate a licensing agreement with Ethiopia that respects its ownership of its unique coffee trademarks,” said Petchers. “Starbucks has retailed these Ethiopian coffees for as much as $26 a pound yet most Ethiopian coffee farmers struggle to survive on one dollar a day.”
At its Annual General Meeting today, Starbucks is celebrating growth of more than 20 percent in net revenues over the past year. Meanwhile, coffee farmers struggle to meet their most basic needs.
“Is this the best that a company that is all about humanity can do?” asked Petchers. “It’s time for Starbucks to allow Ethiopian coffee farmers to find their way out of poverty instead of continuing to stand in their way.”
]]>Billed as the first summit between the Ethiopians who produce the coffee and the US and Canadian companies that buy it, this week's meeting showcased real unity and support for Ethiopia's efforts. Ethiopia has asserted ownership of the names of its coffees so that it can increase the coffees' value, gain more leverage, and receive an equitable price in the market. Already some companies, such as Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, have agreed to work with Ethiopia on this initiative. Their representatives showed their support by attending the meeting.
"Now that the trademarking work is becoming fruitful, many in the specialty coffee market are happy with us and accept that we want to increase our negotiating power and ensure greater returns to small farmers," said Tadesse Meskela, manager of Oxfam partner, the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union.
As the three-hour meeting unfolded, I was struck by the achievements already realized by the Ethiopians. It was clear that everyone in the room was ready to work together to help Ethiopian farmers get an equitable share of the coffees, which have sold for as much as $26 a pound in the US. The stakeholders and coffee companies left the meeting with a "To Do" list and a promise to meet again in the coming months.
It was a tremendous achievement for Oxfam's partners, three farmer cooperative unions, to sit side-by-side with private exporters, government representatives, and foreign coffee buyers, discussing ways to improve the livelihoods of Ethiopia's coffee farmers.
During the meeting, I had the opportunity to speak about the tremendous global support Ethiopia's efforts have garnered. Since October, more than 90,000 Oxfam supporters from around the world have voiced their solidarity for Ethiopia's initiative. Through their efforts, these supporters have sent a clear message that coffee companies must recognize the legitimate right of countries and farmers to use the names of their coffees and their unique reputations to compete in global markets and realize higher incomes.
While much attention has been paid to Starbucks's unwillingness to recognize this right, I left the meeting feeling inspired. The conversation has moved from whether Ethiopia has the rightful ownership of its coffee names to how the coffee industry should recognize those rights and act accordingly.
As Ashenafi Argaw of Oxfam partner, Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union, said, "Our farmers deserve a better price than they are getting right now. Let's plan and discuss ways to get them better benefits from the market."
]]>The current ICA expires in September 2007. Negotiations regarding the next ICA are an excellent opportunity to implement policies to advance international cooperation on the development of a more sustainable, participatory, and equitable coffee supply chain. Oxfam urges reforms along three general themes:
Following a traditional coffee ceremony featuring some of Ethiopia's finest coffees—Harar, Sidamo, and Yirgacheffe—the farmers said they wanted the opportunity to make more money off the coffees they cultivate, which command such high prices among consumers.
While Starbucks charges as much as $26 a pound for Ethiopian specialty coffees, Ethiopian coffee farmers get only 5-10 percent of that price. For this reason, Ethiopia has asked Starbucks to sign a trademark agreement that would give Ethiopia the ability to control the use of its coffee names, occupy a stronger negotiating position with foreign buyers, and capture a larger share of the market.
"Just because I'm a farmer, don't think that I don't understand what's happening in the global market," said Tadesse Terro, who traveled from Yirgacheffe to speak out. "I do listen to the radio and I know how much my coffee retails for overseas. The money I earn for my hard work does not come close."
More than 200 people came to the Sheraton hotel in Addis Ababa to attend the coffee ceremony. Government officials and diplomats joined community activists and farmers. Each person signed a petition asking Starbucks to honor its commitment to Ethiopian coffee farmers by recognizing the country's ownership of its coffee names.
One farmer, 85-year-old Gemede Robe, left his Abaya district hometown for the first time to attend the event. Unable to read and write, he signed the Starbucks petition with his fingerprint.
Robe became the face behind Ethiopia's trademark initiative late last year when Oxfam began using his photograph to publicize the campaign.
"Like any other human being, we Ethiopians hold our names very dear," Robe said. "If given the opportunity to speak with people at the big company (Starbucks), I would ask them why they're resisting us owning our coffee names. I am sure they know, as the whole world does, that our coffees are some of the best in the world. But why are they refusing to give us the recognition we deserve?"
Oxfam is part of a broad coalition calling on Starbucks to sign a trademark agreement with Ethiopia. More than 89,000 people in 70 countries have already joined the campaign. Earlier in December, activists from New Zealand to Scotland to the US demonstrated outside of Starbucks stores. The coffee ceremony in Addis Ababa represented the culmination of these global actions.
]]>After the ICO’s May meetings finished in London, ICO members acknowledged this week that it was important for small-scale family coffee farmers, who produce of the majority of the world’s coffee, to make a decent living. However, the ICO failed to come up with specific proposals to solve the ongoing economic crisis facing 25 million of these producers.
“The ICO is talking about addressing issues of environmental and social responsibility – but small farmer representation within the ICO is the only way to effectively address the economic inequities faced by small-scale family coffee farmers and farm workers in the supply chain,” said Dagoberto Suazo, head of the La Central coffee cooperative and Honduran delegate to the ICO.
“Farmers’ voice in these debates is critical in creating true economic sustainability in this sector – ensuring farmers can cover the cost of their coffee production and meet the essential necessities of life such as providing food, education and basic healthcare for their families.”
The ICO first began discussing the future of its operating charter, the International Coffee Agreement (ICA), in 2005. This meeting was a chance to make real progress in agreeing on a new charter that would make solving the world coffee crisis a real priority. However, talks continue to move at a snail’s pace.
“We are asking that small-scale family coffee farmers and farm workers have equal representation in the ICO’s advisory forums,” said Seth Petchers, coffee lead for Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign. “Corporate interests are represented and have dedicated forums for discussion within the ICO – so it’s only reasonable that the people who grow most of the world’s coffee also have a say in the process.”
The lack of progress at these ICO proceedings was further reflected by the organization’s refusal to allow Oxfam to attend the meeting via temporary observer status. While Oxfam was allowed to make a presentation to the council, there was no opportunity for the organization to engage in critical dialogue.
Oxfam, an international development organization, works all over the world with civil society organizations representing coffee farming communities and their concerns. Oxfam is in a unique position to propose tangible, constructive solutions based on its relationships with these communities and organizations representing small coffee farmers.
At this week’s meetings, several ICO delegations submitted statements that emphasized the need to work toward a more sustainable coffee sector, information sharing within the supply chain, and access to credit for farmers– all issues that impact the ability for small coffee farmers to make a decent living and support the urgency for small-scale coffee farmer and farm worker voice within the ICO. However, no commitments were made on these topics.
For more information, contact Helen DaSilva at +617-331-2984 or hdasilva@oxfamamerica.org. To learn about Oxfam’s recommendations for the renewal of the ICA, read the Grounds for Change report at www.oxfamamerica.org/ico.
]]>Last September, coffee farmers from seven countries traveled to Salvador, Brazil, to add their voices to the World Coffee Conference, a special meeting of the International Coffee Organization. The ICO is an intergovernmental organization that brings together coffee-producing and coffee-consuming countries.
The World Coffee Conference kicked off Oxfam America's campaign to influence the next International Coffee Agreement. That agreement was a key issue at the ICO meeting in London this past week, but no specific proposals were forthcoming to solve those ongoing economic problems.
Oxfam has been working to make the agreement better reflect the needs and concerns of small-scale farmers who are struggling with the changing face of the coffee crisis.
"I wonder if the participants at the World Coffee Conference know what the coffee crisis has truly meant for producers," said Pradeep Nandipur of the Karnataka Growers Federation in India.
"In my region, farmers committed suicide because they could see no way out of their mounting debt. They had no way to repay it because their income was gone."
To survive these challenges, farmers and farmworkers said they require some stability, the kind that only comes through long-term capital investment, access to markets, and political representation.
When the international price of coffee dropped to historic lows in 2001, family farmers in places like Guatemala and Ethiopia fell into crisis.
With a glut of coffee on the market, many couldn't find buyers for their crops. Others couldn't pull in enough profits to pay off their farming expenses and feed their children.
Many farmers who survived the price drop were members of fair trade cooperatives. By agreeing to certain principles, such as transparency with members, democratic elections, and setting aside a percentage of profits for the community, cooperative members received a guaranteed minimum price for their crop.
"When the prices were low, fair trade was the best market we had," said Moise Coz, administrator of the IJATZ coop in Guatemala.
Farmers who were part of fair trade cooperatives said they made enough money to buy food, clothe and educate their children, and buy more farmland. Some coops even had enough money to buy mills to process their own coffee or to help local schools buy chalkboards and desks.
But even as farmers were counting the benefits of their fair trade premium, the crisis was changing. The price of coffee began to recover, creating competition between the coops and local middlemen representing importers or mega-roasters.
Some farmers now find themselves in an awkward position. They can sell their coffee to their cooperative for less and wait a few months for payment. Or they can sell to middlemen, called coyotes, willing to pay a higher up-front price.
The cooperatives try to remain competitive by using some of their savings to pay the difference between their price and the coyotes' price. But many fall short.
They need to use their savings to pay the administrative staff or electricity bill. In the end, the best thing cooperatives can do is try to remind farmers that what goes up must come down. When the international price drops, the cooperatives will be the only ones offering a price safety net and specialized training.
"We explain why they aren't receiving the money up front. We have costs to pay off," states Guillermo Campa, President of the IJATZ cooperative.
"We tell them that they need to think about the future. Think about the price dropping like it did in the past. If they work with fair trade, they can have a stable price."
But that argument doesn't always work. "People who live day to day can't just depend on what happened in the past," said Carlos Reynoso, manager of Manos Campesinas cooperative in Guatemala.
So how do coffee cooperatives respond? How do they get their members to sell them enough coffee so they can fulfill their contracts with importers and roasters? And how does the International Coffee Organization help?
Stronger cooperatives are more competitive in a fluctuating market. In order to get there, cooperatives need access to debt refinancing, low-interest loans for working capital, long-term capital investment, information, and markets. With a voice at the ICO, small-scale farmers and their cooperatives can advocate for these interests.
At the World Coffee Conference, Oxfam America and its partners presented coffee producing and consuming countries with a declaration articulating the needs of small-scale farmers and their cooperatives. The declaration calls for these issues to be addressed in the next International Coffee Agreement.
This is just one component of a strategy to give the world's 25 million coffee farmers a real chance to do what they've done for generations—and turn a profit that makes it all worthwhile.
"We need to take advantage of this historic opportunity," said Seth Petchers, Coffee Program Manager at Oxfam America. "We can use these negotiations to put measures in place that better address what these farmers face."
]]>The discussions on the future of the International Coffee Agreement present an historic opportunity to address the ongoing crisis facing smallholder coffee farmers and farmworkers by contributing to sustainable coffee supply chains. At the 2nd World Coffee Conference in September 2005 several organizations presented the International Coffee Organisation and its delegates with the Carta de Salvador—the Salvador Declaration, which stressed the ongoing effects of the coffee crisis facing small-scale family farmers and farmworkers. This paper calls on International Coffee Organization members to support small-scale farmers and farmworker organizations by ensuring space for their direct participation in international debate, creating mechanisms that enhance the availability of market information to small-scale farmers, and maximizing opportunities to develop cohesive international strategies to provide technical support, access to credit, and direct access to markets.
]]>The sound of the rain woke him up. He nudged his wife, asking if she heard it too. Pregnant and tired, she told him to go back to sleep.
"When I woke up again, I opened the door and mud was everywhere. All the kids were screaming," Carlos recalled in February. "We ran from the house, with mud up to our waists."
As the Ajznels sprinted for shelter, the rain poured. Boulders tumbled. Mudslides cut through the earth. Hurricane Stan unloaded on Guatemala, reworking the landscape, and leaving some of its deepest scars on the country's small-scale coffee farms.
Many farmers, like Ajznel, lost their homes and the means to support their families. Coffee trees were infected by fungus, or buried under mud and rocks. Individual coffee farmers said the storm wiped out between 25 and 100 percent of their coffee production.
Five months after the storm, Oxfam America staffers traveled to Guatemala to assess the damage and determine what it would take to rebuild the lives of small-scale coffee farmers.
"Looking at the devastation, you realized what used to be there, that it was someone's income. Then you thought about what it would take to bring it all back," said Seth Petchers, Oxfam America's coffee program manager.
Guatemala's volcanoes and rolling hills provided a perfect funnel for the rain and mud from the hurricane. Much of what was dislodged finally settled on coffee farming communities, located in the high elevations that produce quality beans.
Members of an Oxfam partner cooperative in La Unidad, a village at the base of a mountain in the Tajumulco region, found their community split down the middle by the hurricane. Two concrete bridges that had connected the village collapsed during the storm, taking some riverside homes with them.
"When it started to rain and the river swelled, we left our house knowing that something was going to happen," said Lidia Perez Chavez, 22, a member of the APECAFORM cooperative. "We only took the children and the clothes we were wearing. Afterward, we had lots of trouble. We could only eat once a day because we had so little firewood."
In San Lucas Tolimàn, a community near Lake Atitlan, Don Antonio Chavajay Ixtamer estimated that 80 percent of his land was affected. Walking through his property, he pointed to newly formed ravines, uprooted shade trees, and coffee trees buried under mud, boulders, and silt.
Ixtamer, who is the president of a coffee coop called La Voz, said he intends to replant. But it will take at least four years for the new trees to bear fruit. And while he and his family are doing the recovery work on their own land, they'll lose out on the supplemental income they would have earned doing off-season work in the city or on someone else's farm.
But at least Ixtamer has some coffee trees left to harvest. Some farmers lost everything and were forced to flee to Mexico and the United States.
What will it take to recover? Farmers say they need to replace what was lost—and prepare for future disasters.
Oxfam America will use a $100,000 grant to help partners repair damaged land, provide technical assistance for rehabilitation projects, repair equipment, and offset the dues some coops can't pay because of reduced profits after the hurricane.
The relief work will be coordinated through partner organizations Manos Campesinas and CRECER, which will hire appropriate staff, help farmers plant coffee saplings, make and spread organic fertilizer, build drainage barriers, treat water, and repair coffee mills.
It will mean a lot of work during the next few months. But for many small-scale coffee farmers, there's simply no alternative.
"We need to replant," said Don Juan Tacaxoy Botan, president of ANMSI coop. "We don't have any other option."
]]>But I'm luckier than most. Just as the shortest, coldest days of winter hit Boston, the coffee cherries in Central America and Ethiopia begin reaching their peak red color. That's when I get to do my favorite work—visiting with Oxfam's coffee partners in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Ethiopia. Each coffee harvest, I reconnect with the farmers who Oxfam America campaigns for back home.
Whenever I visit with coffee farmers and explain that I've come to learn more about their lives I'm always greeted warmly. These visits get me motivated, although, if truth be told, the visits aren't always uplifting.
This harvest I visited a farmers' cooperative in southern Ethiopia. Though I was welcomed by a group of 15 farmers and their families, the conversation was grim. The coop had fallen on hard times. Though the world price of coffee was up, the families I met were struggling to make it on $300 a year. In two hours there wasn't a single smile on anyone's face and I drove away struggling to imagine how these people were going to make it.
Just a few weeks ago I returned from Guatemala. The volcanic mountains surrounding Lake Atitlan create some of the best coffee-growing conditions in the world. Yet last October the farmers I met with saw Hurricane Stan wash enough mud and boulders down from these mountains to cover houses and wipe out coffee farms. I met people who lost it all and found myself struck by the fact that these farmers—people who were already struggling to get by—were struggling even harder this year because they were on the wrong side of geographic circumstance.
But both in Ethiopia and Guatemala I was amazed to find—as I always do—something inspiring. This harvest, my favorite experience was a walk with Don Antonio Cavajay Ixtamer, president of the cooperative La Voz que Clama en el Desierto (the voice that cries out in the desert). Antonio took my colleagues and me on a walk through his coffee farm where Antonio estimates 80 percent of his land was damaged. We saw coffee trees buried in infertile silt and stumps marking the places where healthy coffee trees once stood.
At the far end of Antonio's farm we emerged from the trees left standing into an area that looked like a dry river bed covered with boulders, some larger than Antonio. He explained that this area had been covered with coffee trees but was inundated with rocks and mud that slid down the mountain during Stan.
It was hard to fathom the force that was required to do such damage to the farm and I asked Antonio if he would ever be able to recover the land. Without missing a beat, Antonio replied "Si se puede. Si se puede." (Yes we can. Yes we can.), and proceeded to explain how he and his sons would remove the rocks, fill trenches, and build stone barriers to divert water before the rainy season begins in May.
Antonio hopes to have the recoverable portions of his land replanted within three years. I don't know whether he'll be successful, but if he falls short, it won't be for lack of motivation and hard work.
Some won't be successful—I know that. But so many of the coffee farmers I meet share the same spirit as Antonio that I've returned to Boston inspired and ready to do what I can to support them. As a result of my trip, Oxfam will provide farmers with $100,000 they can use to help rebuild after Stan.
Despite all the challenges I see, there are farmers who don't give up. As long as they're willing to fight, then I'm willing to fight, too. Some wins are big, some incremental, and sometimes we don't win at all. But as long as Antonio and other coffee farmers are saying "Si se puede" then "Si se puede" it is for me, as well. Yes we can. We have to.
]]>This report assesses the current state of the coffee crisis and calls on the US government to empower small-scale farmers and farm workers to take full advantage of the improved market conditions. With greater access to rural finance, technical assistance programs, and participation in international debate, small-scale, family farmers and farm workers will be less vulnerable to the boom and bust cycles of the market.
]]>In this report, Oxfam calls for the major players in the coffee industry to support a Coffee Rescue Plan to overcome the current crisis and create a more stable market. The report analyzes the origins and effects of collapsed coffee prices and urges American consumers to join Oxfam in bringing relief to farmers and a change to the system.
]]>"It's good to see Starbucks finally coming to the table, which they initially refused to do," said Seth Petchers, coffee lead for Oxfam International's Make Trade Fair campaign. "Starbucks now says it won't block the initiative, but what it hasn't said is how it will actively support Ethiopia's stated efforts to obtain trademarks for its coffees which will bring added benefits to poor farmers."
After initially dismissing Ethiopia's plan to trademark its specialty coffees, Starbucks, which came under international pressure from campaigners, has now said it is ready to recognize Ethiopia's right to pursue this path.
Ethiopian officials have said Ethiopia will continue to pursue the trademarking and licensing initiative and hopes to enter in to partnership with Starbucks and other companies through negotiated licensing agreements. These would recognize Ethiopia's ownership of the coffee names and allow them to get a fairer share of the profits for their producers. Ethiopia has obtained a trademark in the US for its Yirgacheffe coffee.
Oxfam and other partners have supported the trademarking initiative as a way to pass down more of the value of coffee sales to poor producers who typically receive a tiny percentage of final sale price, and struggle to make a living.
On February 15 Starbucks announced initiatives to benefit coffee farmers in Ethiopia including funding for a quality improvement project and increased coffee purchases in East Africa. While the additional purchases and support are beneficial, these initiatives fail to address the fundamental rights issue at hand. What the Ethiopians have asked coffee roasters to do is recognize Ethiopia's right to control and share in the value of the country's specialty coffee names through trademarks.
"As a market leader, Starbucks should take concrete steps that the Ethiopian government has called for, including reaching an agreement that recognizes Ethiopia's legal ownership of its coffee names," continued Petchers.
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