A fair share for coffee producers

Since its discovery, coffee has experienced an extraordinary success: world consumption for 2005 totalled 117 million bags. Coffee is now the lifeblood of Ethiopia, providing 67 percent of its foreign-currency earnings and the Choche region, where the stimulant qualities of caffeine were first discovered, remains one of the most important production areas for Arabica coffee. But the inhabitants of Choche have not been able to convert their village’s historical value into prosperity. Most of them are still desperately poor and their lives are dominated by crisis and uncertainty. They know nothing of internationalpricing mechanisms, of trade barriers or export subsidies, about Starbucks or Nestlé or about the Fair Trade alternative.