Wal-mart executives discuss future of 'Black Gold'

By: Niketa Reed

Posted: 4/7/08

In the center of an impoverished village in southern Ethiopia, a disgruntled coffee farmer looks into the camera and frankly states "coffee is gold." It's not gold to him, but rather for the four leading coffee retailers such Sara Lee, Nestle, Kraft, and Proctor and Gamble, according to the documentary "Black Gold."

The documentary was screened at 7 p.m. last Thursday in the First Security Auditorium in Willard J. Walker Hall, followed by a question and answer session for a panel comprised of Tadesse Meskela, the general manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co-operative Union featured in the film; Paul Rice, founding president and CEO of TransFair USA; Matt Kistler, senior vice president of sustainability at Wal-Mart; and a representative from Café Bom Dia, a fair trade and organic coffee company.

The panel was also on hand to explain the fair trade certification that Wal-Mart and Meskela's cooperative group are involved in, which offers coffee farmers a 20 percent premium on their coffee-a floor price for the coffee they harvest. Their message to the audience was "Fair trade is better than aid," citing incidents of self-sufficiency.

The coffee harvested in southern Ethiopia will be sold by Wal-Mart under Sam's Choice brand, which will include Fair Trade Certified House Blend, Espresso Roast and French Roast; Rainforest Alliance Certified Breakfast Blend whole bean and ground coffee; and Organic Swiss Water Process Decaffeinated, according to a CNNMoney.com report. The venture seeks to simplify the supply chain system by shipping roasted coffee directly from the origin.

"The difference is truly dramatic, in terms of the ability of those families to put food on the table, keep their kids in school, and to provide a better living for their kids and for their families," said Rice, who believe the coffee farmers refuse to "sit back with arms crossed, waiting for an international agency to come solve their problems for them.

"Life expectancy in Ethiopia is 47," he said. "Imagine the impact of having clean drinking water in your village for the first time. That's going to dramatically improve lives and the life expectancy of those people. And that's happening thanks to nobody's charity. It's happening thanks to a very simple concept - fair price for a good product, so it's a dramatic difference," he said.

In the film, Meskela travels the world in search of better markets that can offer a fair price for the coffee of the 74,000 farmers that he represents. Viewers see the system in coffee processing, from the coffee farms to the suppliers, which is portrayed as complex and exploitative.

Scenes in the film switch between the disadvantaged coffee farming communities to the daily lives of those at the luxury to consume it, which often exemplifies the absurdity found in those gushing about the great wealth of a market built off the backs of farmers who continue to live in poverty.

Since filming the documentary, the farming communities have been able to build more schools, wells for clean drinking water, a coffee cleaning plant, and other amenities that support the farmers and their families, Meskela said.