Your morning coffee may be dirty
BY MARLI GUZZETTA INDEPENDENT ARTS EDITOR
Tadesse Meskela has as his adversaries companies like Sara Lee, Proctor and Gamble, Kraft and Nestle.

Son of a coffee farmer, he is the manager of The Oromo Coffee Farmers Co-operative Union, which represents over 70,000 Ethiopian coffee farmers. He is also the protagonist at the heart of Marc and Nick Francis' documentary "Black Gold," a Nantucket Film Festival Feature.

Bypassing the international system that exploits coffee farmers (a system that is dominated more by Sara Lee, Proctor and Gamble, Kraft and Nestle and, marginally, by Starbucks), Meskela travels the world finding people who are willing to pay more money for coffee grown by the farmers in his

union (approximately $4

per pound as opposed to $1.26).

"I had been working with coffee farmers for more than 20 years, and I was looking at the life of our people. It was not changing and not improving, so I tried to organize the farmers in cooperatives to raise the economy of scale and bring all the profits back to the growers," said Meskela, who explained that 70 percent of sales have gone to the growers and 30 percent to the greater community since the cooperative began exporting in 2002.

For "Black Gold," Nick and Marc met Meskela in Ethiopia, then went to America to film the New York Commodities Exchange, where the price of coffee (second only to oil in trade) is established, and then to the world's largest coffee trade show, located in Seattle, where Meskela tried to find new buyers for his coffee.

Since the film had its world premiere at Sundance, Nick said he and his brother have been "inundated with inquiries from around the world from people asking how they can help."

They've also had other inquiries: The day before they called The Independent from Seattle, Marc and Nick answered an invitation from five Starbucks representatives to meet with them to discuss the company's policies on coffee production. This was the night after Meskela received a standing ovation from 400 people at the Seattle Film Festival.

"Really the first thing to say is that we haven't made a film about Starbucks. It's not a 'Supersize Me,'" explained Nick, who added that he left the meeting with Starbucks certain that the company is not doing all it can to improve the lives of its coffee farmers. "The film globalizes the issue of coffee with the consumer at the center. It is about exploring the lives of coffee farmers and about how they are losing out in the global economy. They are the have-nots, and the haves are the companies that, over the last 10 years, have found themselves swimming in a high profit margin, while coffee farmers find themselves paid at an all-time low."

The "have nots" in Ethiopia have to walk 20 km to get water, and 85 percent don't have clean water in a place where 13 people live on the floor in a tiny hut - according to the directors.

"When you get into the situation where you see poverty, it's sad," Marc said. "But when you see people who are poor because others are so rich, and that wealth is their loss, or their poverty is dependent upon others being rich, then it becomes tragic."

"Yesterday, we were all looking at how much a farmer gets out of a cup of coffee," Nick said. "For a $3 cup of coffee, a farmer is getting less than two cents. $2.98 goes to everyone other than the farmer, and that's the disparity, multiplied on global level. ... There's a scene in he film when Tadesse meets with the farmers and asks them if they know how much a cup of coffee sells for in the U.S., and they don't believe him."

Change is coming, according to the directors, but it has to come from the consumers. "They are underpinning the industry and voting with their pockets," Marc said.

As a result of the cooperative's work, Oromia has seen four new schools since 2003, four new health centers and three water supply stations.

"We have given back about $1.5 million to the growers - this has helped farmers send children to school and feed families." In

order to bypass unfair

lending policies, the cooperative is also in the process of forming its own bank, Meskela said.

"Our goal was to urgently remind audiences that through just one cup of

coffee, we are inextricably connected to the heart of the global economy," Nick said. "Our point is that fair trade is good, but it's a starting point, not

the end." I

For more information on the film, go to www.blackgoldmovie.com. To learn more about the Oromo Farmers coffee, go to www.oromiacoffeeunion. org. It is also available through Dean's Beans (Oakland, Calif.) and www.cooperativecoffees.com.