Each day more than 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed around the world. Four multinational coffee companies (Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, Kraft and Sara Lee) dominate an estimated $80 billion dollar industry, making coffee the second most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. Yet unknown to most coffee drinkers, coffee farmers continue to live in extreme poverty.
Even though consumers pay US$2-4 dollars for a designer cup of coffee, the farmers who grow the coffee are making an estimated 23 cents per kilo of coffee.
Black Gold follows Ethiopian Oromia Coffee Farmers’ Co-op Union founder Teddese Meskela on a documentary journey, as he tries to help his 74,000 coffee farmers find a fair trade price for their coffee in the western world. Even though Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, local farmers can barely live on the price they receive for their coffee. With no international coffee trade regulations in place, coffee crops pass through at least six different sets of hands between the farmer and the coffee drinker. Each person marks up the profit, further exploiting the coffee farmers.
Black Gold visits the region Sidama where Starbuck’s gets their Ethiopian coffee from, an area of extreme poverty and famine. It quickly becomes apparent just how much even a small increase in the price paid to coffee farmers would affect their lives. One farmer remarks that ‘…to even be paid 57 cents a kilo would change our lives beyond recognition’.
To say coffee farmers are being exploited is an understatement. The disparity between where fancy coffee is being consumed and where it is being grown is a harsh wake-up for anyone who drinks coffee.
If you drink coffee, you need to see this film.
Order this film on Amazon.com Black Gold
Visit: http://www.blackgoldmovie.com/
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