Coffee — Black Gold

Wheat, barley and rye orginated in the fertile crescent of Iraq and enabled humans to give up nomadic herding and establish agriculture-based villages – the basis of all civilised life. Tomatoes, corn, and potatoes are native to the Americas, and are now endemic to world cuisine – what would Italian cooking be without tomatoes?

But what has East Africa contributed to the world? Coffee, that ubiquitous drink that is now an $80billion global industry, originated here. A lot of people have become rich through coffee, Starbucks buys 11% of world production, but the small coffee producers of East Africa live in deep poverty.


Ninety-five percent of Tanzania’s coffee is grown by 400,000 small-scale farmers owning fewer than ten acres of land. Coffee is Tanzania’s largest export crop but small-scale farmers have not reaped the benefits because of policies that have restricted their direct access to the international coffee market. USAID supports programs that allow better trading conditions for small producers in Tanzania.

The School of St Jude is located at the foot of Mt Meru in the prime coffee growing area of Tanzania. The School gives many poor families who depend on coffee production the chance for their children to get a good education.

Private philanthropy, like your donations to the School of St Jude, can help fill the gaps left by unfair trading systems, but the system continues to be unfair. So, it is good to see organisations working to change the system. One initiative to look out for is a new documentary film, called Black Gold, that looks at coffee growing in Ethiopia. Made in 2006, it is doing the round of film festivals and should be released for general viewing later in 2007.



Black Gold is an activist film that aims to point at unfair practices and to change them. Their website has a forum that addresses issues of coffee production, Fair Trade, Starbucks and actions you can take.

If you live in the US, you can buy Peets ’Tanzania Kilimanjaro’ – the 840 growers that supply it get 50% above market rates for their quality beans.

In Australia, Oxfam sells a Fair Trade coffee that is sourced partly from Tanzania – my Christmas supply is nearly finished. Time for more!

On the basis that I need to help at two levels – filling gaps in the system (through support of St Judes) AND changing the system — I am on a letter writing campaign. I am writing to all 150 members of the House of Representatives to ask them to raise the level of Foreign Aid that Australia gives and to target it at extreme poverty. Currently, Australia gives only .26% of GDP as foreign aid, placing it fourth-last of OECD countries. It has committed to increasing this to 0.5% by 2010 and 0.7% by 2015 and these amounts will be needed if the Millenium Development Goals are to be met, because it looks like they won't be at this rate.

I have drafted the letter, printed copies and bought the envelopes and stamps. Folding and stuffing 20 envelopes a day is quite soothing! Especially when we lose the cricket, as we did last night — ending Australia’s perfect summer.

There is an interesting update about the film and related issues on the Poverty News blog. 15 Feb 2007.

Fair Trade coffee

My dear daughter Blanche has an eye for the appropriate! At Christmas she was very pleased with herself because she found some Fair Trade coffee from Tanzania to include in her Christmas gift to me.


She makes me smile at her thoughtfulness.
Fair Trade is an important scheme that promotes economic development in poor countries through trade.

Fair trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, which seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers. Fair trade organizations (backed by consumers) are engaged actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and in campaigning for changes in the rules and practice of conventional international trade.

Trade is a vital element in the mix needed to lift countries out of poverty. However Alex Nicholls, social entrepreneurship professor at Oxford University says that "within developing countries, market conditions are not such that producers can unambiguously be declared to be better off through trade." The existence of market failures lessens the capacity of trade to lift developing countries out of poverty.

Wikipedia notes that fair trade products generally account for 0.5-5% of all sales in their product categories in Europe and North America. In October 2006, over 1.5 million disadvantaged producers worldwide were directly benefiting from fair trade while an additional 5 million benefited from fair trade funded infrastructure and community development projects.

Here’s a personal aside – Australia has a culture of good coffee which was brought to us largely by Italian migrants post-WWII. So there is no excuse for the cultural imperialism of American fast-food outlets in the form of Starbucks. When you drink the watery filtered stuff that passes for coffee in US restaurants and cafes you can see why Starbucks swept the nation. But it would be a sad state of affairs if the same happened here. So, I tend not to use the few Starbucks cafes that have opened in Australia.

However, Starbucks rose mightily in my regard when I discovered that they use Fair Trade coffee. Of course my estimation slid again when I discovered that only 3.7% of their coffee is Fair Trade. Ah well – a little is better than none. Look here to learn about an activist campaign to encourage Starbucks to give greater support to Fair Trade coffee.

For more information about Fair Trade you can check out Wikipedia, or the Fair Trade Organisation of Australia and NZ.

When you are shopping, you can look for the Fair Trade logo on goods you buy. Your retail dollar is a vote, and every dollar counts.


The Fair Trade movement is just getting underway in Australia, so look out for more Fair Trade goods appearing in the major supermarkets in the next year or two.

I wonder if they grow coffee in the north of Tanzania, near Arusha? Do some of the parents of kids at St Judes work on coffee farms? Maybe I’ll find out when we visit later this year!