If you want to know more about coffee specifically and exploitation generally, definitely check out Black Gold airing on PBS on April 10th. The independent film by Nick Francis and Marc Francis reveals the plight of Ethiopian coffee farmers and why they receive a tiny fraction of the profit on their goods.
The film, which showed last night at the Fine Arts Theatre in Los Angeles, traces the coffee from the farmers to the exporters to the importers to the retailers and finally to the consumers. It makes the argument that because coffee goes through a chain of six links, the farmers themselves make practically no money on their product.
The film shows beautiful scenes from the Ethiopian countryside. It juxtaposes African poverty and malnutrition centers with frivolous Starbucks employees. The audience jeered at the employees and practically hissed every time a Westerner was shown drinking a Starbucks.
Though the movie neglects to fully explain the impact of the Ethiopian government’s disastrous economic policies, it does shed some light on what exactly free trade is and why the WTO talks lead to the exploitation of Africa.
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