New legislation introduced by Rep. Charles Rangel in the House of Representatives and Sen. Max Baucus in the Senate would extend a critical provision of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that allows for flexibility in determining which clothing products qualify for duty-free treatment. These bills would help encourage apparel companies to continue sourcing from sub-Saharan Africa, which is vital to preserving the jobs of thousands of workers, mainly women, who lack other economic alternatives.
“While a longer-term solution is needed to promote the apparel sector in sub-Saharan Africa, we need urgent action today to ensure that the jobs upon which thousands of women depend for their livelihoods do not disappear tomorrow,” said Oxfam America President Raymond C. Offenheiser.
“Broader reforms are imperative in the near future so that more people in Africa can take advantage of AGOA,” said Offenheiser. “However, emergency legislation is critical to ensuring that the gains already made under AGOA are not lost.”
In addition, the bills would extend for two years the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA), which provide duty-free benefits to many developing countries.
“The continuation of duty-free programs like GSP and ATPA provides the vital opportunity for developing countries to utilize trade as a way of achieving sustained economic growth and poverty reduction,” said Offenheiser.
]]>Earlier this month, Ethiopian farmer cooperatives, coffee exporters, and government officials met with American and Canadian coffee companies in Long Beach, California to talk more about the trademark and licensing initiative.
The historic meeting at the Specialty Coffee Association of America conference represented the next stage in dialogue between Ethiopians and North American roasters, which started in Addis Ababa this February. There, roasters committed to help bring their peers to the table and Ethiopians agreed to begin building the program's infrastructure. Much was accomplished in just three short months. Getachew Mengiste, director of the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office, told a standing-room-only crowd in Long Beach about recently completed training workshops for staff from embassies, farmer cooperatives, and exporting companies.
Ethiopia launched its coffee trademark and licensing initiative to give farmers more control over their world renowned coffee brands, strengthen farmers' negotiating position, and ultimately help them capture a greater share of their coffee's value. At the conference in Long Beach, the Ethiopians used their time with roasters to discuss the best ways to work together to put the program's "nuts and bolts" into place.
"We are working together for a common cause," said Mengiste as he opened the gathering. "This initiative should meet the interests of farmers to ensure that they get benefits from their fine coffee. The interests of our roaster partners should also be met. The whole idea behind this initiative is to connect our coffee farmers with the roasters."
Attendees agreed on the key points for discussion, which included ways that the coffee brands would be used on packages and labeling, joint marketing promotion strategies, guaranteeing quality, and expanding the network of participating roasters. Tadesse Meskela, manager of Oxfam partner, the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union, opened the floor for discussion. As he stood in front of the room, Meskela thanked all of the participants and gave special acknowledgement to the roasters who have already committed to the project by signing a licensing agreement.
For two hours, participants discussed ideas, challenges, and opportunities for moving the trademarking initiative forward. The spirit of the conversation was collaborative with roasters giving the Ethiopians many points to consider when they return home and begin implementation. Participants took on a shared sense of responsibility for carrying out their individual roles in the process. As Dean Cycon, owner of Dean's Beans Organic Coffee Company, one of the most recent companies to sign a licensing agreement with Ethiopia, said, "Whatever we're creating together we want to protect."
It will take a lot of hard work to ensure that the trademarking and licensing initiative creates real change for Ethiopia's poor coffee farmers. But the second meeting of Ethiopian stakeholders and North American roasters ended with participants ready to take up the challenge.
"We have said that the farmers have the right to own their coffee brands," said Ashenafi Argaw of the Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union. "Now all of the stakeholders need to work very hard together to bring them the benefits."
]]>Congress today formally received implementing legislation sent by President George W. Bush for the Free Trade Agreement, which Congress must now take up under ‘fast track’ rules that require an up-or-down vote within 90 legislative days.
“In a country plagued by armed conflict, reducing poverty in rural areas would be the best way to address our security concerns, but this trade deal will do just the opposite,” said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America. “Although the deal is billed to help in the fight against drug trafficking, poor farmers who cannot compete with US exports to sell their food crops, such as corn and rice, will have few other options but to grow coca to survive.”
Poverty and inequality in rural areas has fueled Colombia’s armed conflict for more than four decades and led to an expansion of illicit coca cultivation. If passed, the Colombia trade deal will threaten the livelihoods of small and medium-scale farmers who produce food for the domestic market, deepening poverty and inequality among the country’s 12 million rural inhabitants. The trade deal forces Colombia to fully open its market to the US while providing substantially no new US market access for Colombia beyond that granted by the Andean trade preference program since 1991. Agriculture accounts for 22% of employment in Colombia, nearly twice the level of employment in the manufacturing industry, and in the country’s poorest regions most farmers who cultivate grains and livestock for local markets will be unable to compete with subsidized US exports.
In addition, the trade deal is no fix to the continued environment of intimidation and impunity in Colombia that limits the ability of human rights, labor and community leaders to effectively carry out their work. Just over the last month, a series of death threats from para-military groups together with public accusations by government officials have contributed to continued acts of violence against human rights defenders, including the murder of three trade unionists and two community leaders that remain in impunity.
“In the current context of intimidation, violence and impunity, the Colombia Free Trade Agreement could only make matters worse by increasing tensions that result from greater poverty and inequality,” said Offenheiser. “Trade can only be an engine for poverty reduction if trade rules bring benefits to vulnerable populations, but the Colombia Free Trade Agreement fails this test.”
Oxfam called on the US Congress to reject the Colombia Free Trade Agreement as it would undermine development and poverty reduction, adversely affecting women, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities in particular. Instead, the US needs a new trade policy that will expand economic opportunity for poor people in developing countries as well as for the middle class here at home. Such a policy would involve completing a multilateral trade deal with rules to adequately address the disparities in levels of development among countries, as well as extending existing trade preference programs to include all the world’s poorest countries.
"Developing countries like Colombia need to have available a range of policy tools to foment development and poverty reduction, such as effective import safeguards and investment regulations, but these are prohibited by the FTA," said Offenheiser. “Congress should instead continue trade relations with Colombia by extending the Andean trade preference program to encourage export diversification that can benefit the poor, while passing important domestic policies to address the economic insecurity that much of the population is facing here at home.”
]]>“This is an important step for Ethiopia as it engages with coffee companies on its innovative trademarking initiative designed to help alleviate poverty,” said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America. “This initiative will help create real change for the 15 million Ethiopians dependent on the country’s coffee sector.”
According to Ethiopia and Starbucks, the agreement is expected to be finalized and signed by both parties in May. More details regarding the content of the agreement will be available once it has been signed.
"Oxfam eagerly awaits the final agreement and long overdue recognition of these coffees as unique and valued products of Ethiopia's coffee farmers," continued Offenheiser.
In the meantime, Ethiopia’s trademarking project has continued to gain momentum. The licensing team heading the project has begun to roll out an implementation plan for the registered trademarks in Canada, the European Union, the United States and Japan. A marketing plan aimed at further raising the profile of the Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe brands on the international market is also underway.
The goal of the trademarking initiative is to help Ethiopia’s coffee sector—including farmer cooperatives—earn more from its valuable coffee brands, increase its negotiation leverage through control of the marks, and ultimately increase the price received for its best coffees. Ethiopia will be able to protect the valuable reputation of its coffees and enable poor growers to capture a greater share of the retail price.
In October 2006, Oxfam launched an international public campaign to encourage Starbucks to engage with Ethiopia directly on the issue of the country’s ownership of its specialty coffee names. Over 93,000 supporters have called on Starbucks to sign a licensing agreement with Ethiopia.
]]>"One part was washed out by the landslides," cooperative member Lucas Izapo told us. "Before Stan, the land was thick with coffee plants, everything was covered with coffee plants. When the landslide came, it took the coffee bushes with it. The hill was left bald, and covered in rock.
"Now I am fixing up my land, little by little. But it's not going to take a year to fix it, it'll take three, four, or more years before this part is back to normal. Because it isn't easy to build walls. This year I planted living fences with Yucca and Bower Vine. And little by little I am going to make a stone wall, to protect the coffee from the rain that falls [each winter]."
The cooperative was able to support its members with the donation of new coffee plants to replace the older ones, organic fertilizer, and $62 for each member. They needed to make this investment to care for the plants they still had left.
They cooperative also repaired the channel that drains the coffee washing stations. This was essential to renew their fair trade certification; without this certification their income would drop even more.
Like other places in Guatemala, farmers in Solola lost much of their corn. Lucas said it has been difficult to feed his family of 10.
"I had to work even harder to sustain us, because I didn't have my harvest which was lost the year before. I lost 160 to 200 pounds from that corn harvest. So I had to plant tomato and onion and sell it to buy the corn that I used to grow for myself. Little by little I was able to buy the corn—100 pounds, another 100 pounds—because I grew these other crops."
]]>Recovering the coffee crop is not a quick endeavor. In the majority of cases it will be three or four years until the harvest is at its normal level. And cleaning up the destroyed plots of land also takes time. It is an additional task that the coffee growers had to undertake in the moments when they weren't tending to the crops spared by the storm.
The first cooperative we visited was ASUVIM, in the province of Quetzaltenango, where we spoke with the president of the cooperative, Daniel Balux. The principle problem this cooperative faced was that nearly 30 percent of its harvest was affected by black bean, a deformation of the coffee bean that cannot be seen when the coffee is harvested, but only once it is dried. It changes the color and the taste of the coffee, disqualifying it from the gourmet and fair trade markets.
Can you tell us about the black bean problem?
Actually, we detected it here at the mill. We saw that we had black beans, but we didn't think it was so extensive, we thought it was just the first beans. But as we continued with the harvest it was the same. It was the whole harvest. The coffee looked good as parchment coffee but if we look at them all—the ones with a different color, they are black beans. We can't say that our members brought in bad coffee, because the cherries looked good, they didn't even look a little rotten or anything like that. The coffee was good. You can't say to the people, look, bring us better coffee or chose it better—[but] of course when they cup this coffee the cuppers will say it is green coffee, coffee that didn't reach its full maturity. So the aid for the black bean was something necessary [to compensate for the low price]. So, what did we do after all this? Well, thanks to the help that came from you, at least the members got their normal price. At least we could say to them, 'Look, the coffee was shipped at this price, but we are going to help you a little bit and we are going to pay you this much.' The people saw that at least there was an effort behind all this."
In addition to this monetary compensation that was given to the members, what other actions did ASUVIM take to overcome the crisis?
Here 60 percent of what people earn comes from coffee. If there are problems with the coffee, there are problems in the families. Either there is little schooling, or people are unable to complete projects they had planned or there isn't much food. Here in ASUVIM we also helped out with corn. We gave each member 800 pounds of corn. Part of it we donated, the other part the members had to buy. Each family of six consumes about 1,600 pounds of corn per year. [They lost 80 percent of the harvest.] What happened with the 20 percent that they were left with? They ate it in January, maybe into February, but by March they had to buy corn. Then the problem is that when there is high demand for corn, the price rises. So we helped them with this, with 800 pounds. We think it's 50 percent of the corn they eat, we could now say that at least they had corn to eat.
The other damage we suffered as an organization is related to the landslide here next to the patio where we sun dry the coffee. With the rain, little by little, we were losing more of it. So we were faced with an emergency. Either we did something or our patio would collapse. And the more time that passed, the worse it was. So we received aid from Oxfam America because the construction is big. But it was necessary because if we lose the patio, it'd be an additional expense.. We are still constructing, but we are making the wall. We aren't doing something that is simply going to fall apart next year and then we would have to invest in it all over again. We want to invest, to spend and if that means chipping in ourselves, we do it.
]]>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.”
]]>Twenty-five developing countries have now signed free trade deals with developed countries, with more under negotiation, according to the report, Signing Away the Future. In total, there are more than 250 regional or bilateral trade agreements in force today, governing 30% of world trade. The US Congress is now considering new Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) already signed with Colombia and Peru, agreements which will harm thousands of vulnerable small farmers, block access to affordable medicines and favor foreign investors, according to Oxfam.
“Trade could be an engine to lift millions out of poverty, but these agreements are simply bad for development,” said Stephanie Burgos, Trade Policy Advisor for Oxfam America. “Agreements such as the ones with Peru and Colombia will only exacerbate poverty in countries by imposing hardships on developing country farmers, making access to affordable medicines more difficult, and constraining the kinds of policies developing country governments should enact to protect their own citizens and fight poverty.”
The poorest people in developing countries often bear the brunt of FTAs, as seen in the case of Mexico and the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In the first ten years after the agreement was enacted, Mexico lost 1.3 million agricultural jobs, according to the report. Manufacturing jobs were initially created but competition from cheap labor in China led to 200,000 job losses between 2001 and 2004 as firms relocated. In Peru, studies show that up to 900,000 people could be left without access to medicines if the US-Peru trade agreement goes ahead.
“Mexico has already suffered the initial impacts of the NAFTA—I saw it first hand when I met with small-scale producers of corn in Chiapas - and it will be worse if they fully liberalize the market for corn, beans and rice,” said Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal who has been working with Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair Campaign. “These agreements demonstrate the absence of political will to transform trade into a tool in the fight against poverty.”
The Oxfam report recommends that all trade rules, whether multilateral, regional or bilateral:
“Here in Washington, Congress should develop a new framework of objectives and priorities for US trade policy to ensure that it is not a tool strictly for advancing mercantile US business interests, but for shared prosperity, increased integration, and cooperation,” said Burgos. “Congress should recognize the dangers of such bilateral agreements and quickly vote to reject them.”
]]>Overall, the proposal would spend an estimated US$10 billion less over the next 10 years than projected spending for the 2002 Farm Bill, which is set to expire in September 2007. Much of the anticipated savings are from expected high prices for many commodities in future years. However, the Johanns proposal actually would spend US$5 billion more from 2008 – 2012 than simply extending the existing provisions in the 2002 Farm Bill.
Download the attached file to read the full text of this report by Oxfam America employee Emily Alpert. (From Bridges No. 1, February-March 2007, published by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development.)
]]>Two institutional investor organizations have joined Oxfam and other campaigners in criticizing Novartis as the company holds its annual general meeting in Basel today (Mar 6).
Dan Rosan from the US-based Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), an association of 275 faith-based institutional investors and with $110 billion in collective assets, said: “Novartis has substantially invested in neglected disease research, policy development, and stakeholder engagement, differentiating itself from the rest of the pharmaceutical industry. Now, their actions in this case are undermining that record. Novartis’s legal tactics in this case have raised the stakes higher than the several thousand Indian patients relying on Glivec, to involve the millions of people kept alive today by generic AIDS drugs from India.”
Alex van der Velden from FairPensions, a British-based campaign for responsible investment, said: “Novartis is threatening its own future profits as well as access to medicines, putting at risk its reputation in key emerging markets and undermining public acceptance of the intellectual property regime on which pharmaceutical profits depend.”
Oxfam says that the Novartis case threatens access to affordable medicines for millions of poor people in developing countries. Novartis is suing the Indian government in an effort to ratchet up patent protection in India by eliminating the legitimate public health provisions in the country’s patent law. The specifics of the case center around a patent on the Novartis cancer drug Glivec.
Oxfam says that Novartis cannot pursue the case while continuing to tout its charitable credentials. A number of petitions have been set up by campaigners against Novartis and nearly 400,000 people have signed. More investors are starting to question Novartis’s policy on this case and the risk it is taking with its reputation.
“Novartis wants ‘good news’ headlines about its sales figures or its drugs pipeline or its philanthropy. But the real headline is about the company attacking how some of the poorest people in the world are getting affordable medicines,” said Celine Charveriat, head of Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign. “Novartis should do the right thing and drop its case today.”
Julien Reinhard from the Berne Declaration said: “The Novartis case in India goes beyond the case of anticancer medicine Glivec because it is directly challenging an internationally recognized public health safeguard. This has consequences far beyond India alone. The concerns expressed by the former President of the Swiss Confederation Ruth Dreifuss and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, along with thousands of campaigners worldwide, deserve to be taken seriously by the company. It is time for Novartis to show corporate responsibility by dropping its case in India.”
]]>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:
In 2005, cancer patient groups in India used Indian intellectual property law to stop a patent application by Swiss company Novartis for its anti-cancer drug, Glivec. This allowed Indian companies to continue making generic versions at about $2,700 a year, as opposed to Novartis having a monopoly priced version for sale at about $27,000 a year.
Novartis recently appealed the decision in a direct challenge to India's right to use safeguards contained in trade rules agreed by the WTO in 2001 in the interests of public health.
What is Glivec?
Glivec (Gleevec in the US) is an important drug that means the difference between life and death for cancer patients suffering from leukemia (CML), stomach tumors, and other conditions. Glivec is a significant improvement over other forms of treatment and should be as widely available as possible, at affordable prices.
Why is Novartis enforcing its patent on Glivec in India and in other in developing countries?
Glivec is a key drug for Novartis worldwide. It's the company's second best selling drug with sales reaching $2.8 billion in 2005 and accounts for 9.6 per cent of Novartis's estimated share value. Research indicates that there are multiple diseases that respond to the drug. In only five years, Glivec is now approved in the US for seven different diseases. There is a danger that the company could apply for a new patent based on these "new uses" elsewhere, which would extend its monopoly and delay availability of affordable generic versions of Glivec for people who need it.
Novartis says that there is virtually no commercial market for Glivec in India and that it is taking the case in part to "align Indian IP laws with TRIPS", The World Trade Organization's agreement on intellectual property. This action is one that will affect India's right to produce not only generic versions of Glivec but also for other new medicines in the future.
What would happen if Novartis were successful in its appeal?
Not only would it increase the price of the drug it would also jeopardize India's generic export industry. India is the world's leading supplier of inexpensive generic medicines to developing countries with approximately 67 percent of its exports going to developing countries. As a result people needing cheaper versions of medicines in many developing countries would lose out.
Oxfam believes that generic competition reduces the price of many patented medicines and makes them much more affordable to poor people in developing countries. Lower prices via generic competition could ensure free or subsidized medicines for millions of poor people through increased public sector funding for health, through health insurance and because many poor people are willing to pay out of pocket for medicines because the health and well being of themselves and their family a top priority.
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