Ethiopia tries to trademark the names of its most famous coffees/coffee regions but Starbucks resists, as it has already applied for the same names in the United States

Aaron Glantz

(San Francisco Dec 2, 2006)  Starbucks CEO Jim McDonald traveled to Addis Ababa to meet with Ethiopia's prime minister Meles Zenawi this week in an effort to head off what's becoming an increasingly public dispute over the Ethiopian government's efforts to trademark the country's best-known coffee blends.

"There was no agreement," said intellectual property lawyer and Ethiopian government adviser Ron Layton, characterizing the tone of the meetings.

Human rights groups accuse Starbucks of trying to stop Ethiopia from trademarking its best-known coffee beans Sidamo and Harar, thereby denying farmers potential income of more than $90 million a year.

"It was clear going into the meeting that there was a distance between the two sides and it would have taken some moves on both sides to reach an agreement," Layton told OneWorld.

So far, Ethiopia has successfully trademarked its beans in over 30 countries; in the United States Starbucks has petitioned to trademark the Ethiopian blends.

"This is a rights issue and we deserve to have our rights recognized. We strongly believe that trademarking is the way to go," Zenawi said in a statement. "The right to own our coffee names is the only way that we can preserve our rich coffee heritage; Ethiopia has an obligation to coffee consumers worldwide to protect and preserve our unique coffees."

"It's important to understand that most Ethiopians live on less than a dollar a day," said Seth Petchers, a fair trade campaigner at the human rights group Oxfam America. "Starbucks sells some of these beans for up to $26 a pound."

Fair trade advocates look at the dispute as a clash between David and Goliath. In Starbucks, they see a $6.4 billion giant with more than 10,000 stores in 37 countries; in Ethiopia, they see the impoverished, hillside farmers of Ethiopia's premium coffee-growing regions.

Ethiopia grows more coffee than any other country in Africa. Approximately 50 percent of its export earnings come from the sale of coffee.
"What Ethiopia is trying to do is capture some of the value that's associated with its reputation the same way a company here in the Untied States would trademark the name of one of its products to make sure it gets a fair share of the value associated with it," Petchers said.
Starbucks refused to be interviewed for this story. The company did send an e-mail saying, "Starbucks fully supports the premise that any protection of specialty coffee names in Ethiopia should benefit Ethiopian coffee farmers."

In a statement on the company's Web site, McDonald characterized his meetings with the Ethiopian prime minister as cooperative and said the Seattle-based company is "committed to working with the Ethiopian government to find a solution that supports the Ethiopian coffee farmer."

"Starbucks likes to paint itself as a socially conscious vanguard within the corporate world because they carry some fair trade coffee on their shelf, but when you look at the numbers and you look at what Starbucks does it's not fair at all," Eric Holt-Gimenez, executive director of the anti-hunger group Food First, told OneWorld.

Because of that, Holt-Gimenez believes the Ethiopian government is in a very good bargaining position. He says Ethiopian student groups inside the United States are set to start a campaign against the coffee giant and Starbucks will likely have to cut a deal if it wants to keep its reputation intact.

"I think Starbucks is beginning to feel the heat," Holt-Gimenez said. "The fact that McDonald went and came back and nothing changed tells me that the Ethiopian government is playing hardball in trying to get something to help its people."
 

OneWorld is a global information network developed to support communication media of the people.  The original of this article may be seen at http://news.yahoo.com/s/oneworld/20061202/wl_oneworld/45361432991165080878

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