One of the most appalling—yet sadly, not surprising—aspects of the movie for me was the WTO meeting. The prejudice, injustice, and complete bias on the part of powerful nations like the U.S. was tragically typical. The assembly’s goal was to negotiate trade rules fairly with all nations involved, but the outcome appeared to be a complete and utter disrespect for developing nations by tenacious powerhouses like the U.S. and UK. The developing nations represented at the meeting were outraged at the unfairness. This caused an uproar of angry participants in protest, asserting the WTO as a manipulative, power,based organization. The outcome was disastrous, with no resolution. It is easy to see why so many developing nations like Ethiopia are struggling to find free trade options for their countries.
Coffee is an eighty billion dollar a year industry—one of the most valuable in the world—with Ethiopia being the largest producer of coffee in Africa. There are more than fifteen million Ethiopians depending on it for their existence. The heartbreaking and very real truth is that the backbone of the entire operation—farmers—are hardly seeing a penny of this ridiculously hefty profit. According to the human rights organization, Global Exchange, the salary of the CEO of Starbucks in 2001 was a whopping $2,145,000, while the average yearly salary for a coffee farmer was a measly $300.
Seems a bit unfair don’t you think? The world’s coffee market is dominated by four major multinational corporations: Kraft, Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, and Sara Lee—all of which sell a small amount of fair trade coffee because of rising demands, but still remain primarily non fair trade operations. All of their CEOs make millions of dollars a year while farmers earn pennies a day. Ethiopia is in a crisis as we speak. The volumes of people in poverty and famine are astounding. Even though Ethiopia is one of the top producers of coffee in the world (the sixth largest), Africa’s fair trade has fallen to a meager one percent. This revenue is hardly enough to sustain the thousands of starving people in Ethiopia.
