Starbucks vs. Ethiopia

American behemoth still lukewarm to Ethiopia's efforts to secure fairer coffee bean prices.

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

It's a long way — both figuratively and literally — from Seattle, home of upscale coffee-shop giant Starbucks, to Ethiopia, hard-scrabble birthplace of the coffee bean. Ethiopia is one of the oldest, poorest nations in the world, and more than 80 percent of the population are engaged in agriculture, mainly subsistence farming. But that didn't stop the mighty Starbucks from reaching out and slapping the upstart African nation when it tried to secure fairer prices for its coffee beans.

Two years ago, Ethiopia filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register some of its finest coffees, named by their regions, Sidamo, Yirgacheffe and Harar. The trademark might enable the country to capture a fairer share of the global market value associated with those names and pass on more money to small, struggling producers who receive a tiny percentage of the retail price. Last season, reported Fortune magazine, an Ethiopian farmer netted less than a dollar from a pound of coffee. That same pound of coffee, marketed in the U.S. as Starbucks' roasted Shirkina Sun-Dried Sidamo, sold for $26.

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