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In an e-mailed response to The Bee, Starbucks vice president for global communications, Frank Kern, wrote that the Chiapas farmers were ultimately "given the opportunity to ship directly to us as they requested, but they were unable to manage it."
Sharper focus on Africa
In Ethiopia, Starbucks says, it spent $25,000 on three footbridges in 2004. The company estimates the structures are used by 70,000 farmers and family members -- about 1 percent of those who depend upon coffee for income. Some Ethiopian coffee leaders say there is a better way to help.
"If we are paid a (coffee) price which is decent, the people can make the bridge on their own," said Tadesse Meskela, general manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers' Cooperative Union of 100,000 farmers, which has sold to Starbucks. "We don't have to be always beggars."
Starbucks won't disclose what it pays for Ethiopian coffee. Instead, it lumps its purchases together into a global average, which last year was $1.42 a pound, 16 cents more than the Fair Trade minimum. Much of that money, though, never makes it into the pockets of farmers but instead is siphoned off by buyers, processors and other middlemen.
Starbucks executives say they want to shrink that supply chain. "You end up at least five levels removed from the farmer and that's where the money goes," said Hay. "And that's a shame." Hay said that as the company buys more coffee from Africa -- it plans to double its purchases there to 36 million pounds by 2009 -- the commerce will spur more progress.
"That's our goal," Hay said. "Africa is 6 percent of our purchases. ... Seventy percent is from Latin America. So that's where our money has gone."
Making an impact in Ethiopia is undeniably a challenge. Good roads, electricity, potable water don't exist in many places. The climate is often hostile. There are ethnic conflicts, border disputes and rebel movements, and a sea of young faces that gather every time a car stops.
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