How fair is Fair Trade Coffee?
As market leader, Starbucks has exercised unfair control over the world’s coffee bean trade, trampling smaller indigenous markets in the process. According to a 2006 report by the BBC, the company asked the National Coffee Association (NCA) to stop the trademark efforts for Harar, Sidamo, and Yirgacheffe, all native coffee beans from Ethiopia. According to Oxfam, the move would deny Ethiopian coffee farmers as much as $88 million in earnings every year. Talks between Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Starbucks CEO Jim Donald in November 2006 failed to resolve the problem. Starbucks’ answer to this is Fair Trade coffee – coffee made from beans grown by Third World farmers. The plan involves purchasing one million pounds of Third World-produced coffee at competitive prices, an attempt to raise the living standards of coffee farmers. It seems that the move is hardly altruistic. For starters, Starbucks sells Fair Trade coffee at about the same price as other gourmet coffees. It mak
