- Reuters -
Africa\'s top coffee growers backed Ethiopia recently in its trademark row with Starbucks, saying securing the protection rights for various crops and plants could lift millions from poverty. Ethiopia and the British charity Oxfam have accused the U.S.-based coffee shop giant of blocking Ethiopia\'s attempts to trademark its beans, denying farmers there potential income of more than $90 million.Africa's top coffee growers backed Ethiopia on Thursday in its trademark row with Starbucks , saying securing the protection rights for various crops and plants could lift millions from poverty.
Ethiopia and the British charity Oxfam have accused the U.S.-based coffee shop giant of blocking Ethiopia's attempts to trademark its beans, denying farmers there potential income of more than $90 million.
"We are dealing with the issue of improving the lives of millions of people," Sindiso Ngwenya, deputy secretary-general of the 20-member Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, told Reuters at a major coffee meeting in Addis Ababa.
"Make no mistake, (we) support Ethiopia because we are not only dealing with coffee but also with a wide range of products."
The dispute escalated on Thursday when Ethiopia said it could take action against the U.S. firm over purchases of its prized coffee beans.
"Starbucks has to recognise that this is Ethiopian coffee, this is an Ethiopian brand. That is what we demand from Starbucks," Ethiopia's assistant agriculture minister, Ato Yacob Yalla, told reporters.
"If they don't keep that brand then we will take measures."
Starbucks officials have said they are concerned with some specific provisions that Ethiopia was seeking, but that they are willing to discuss the matter.
To appease critics, the company also listed six new incentives to boost east Africa's coffee industry.
It said it would double coffee purchases from the region, support education projects, increase credit to farmers by $1 million on top of $9 million already advanced and expand the range of local products that it imports.
RISING PRICES
Dub Hay, Starbucks' senior vice-president for coffee and global procurement, said the company was engaging the Ethiopian government on the trademark dispute and pledged to continue helping African farmers improve the quality of their produce.
"We have listened very carefully to you and what you need. The first commitment we want to make today is that we will double our purchase from east Africa in the next two years," Hay told a specialty coffee meeting of the Eastern African Fine Coffees Association (EAFCA) in Ethiopia.
"We will continue to celebrate and promote African coffees with the 44 million customers who visit our stores each week."
Although the row has dominated proceedings at the conference in Ethiopia -- which is coffee's birthplace -- delegates are also discussing ways to improve an industry which seems to be recovering after many years of decline due to weak prices.
Despite rising prices, peasant farmers still struggle to survive. A quarter of Ethiopia's nearly 80 million people depend on coffee -- which is also the leading export earner for the Horn of Africa nation, which remains one of the world's poorest.
Experts said expanding the specialty coffee market was likely to change the fortunes of farmers across the continent.
"Specialty coffee can increase the family income of a small farmer," said Glenn Anders, the head of USAID in Ethiopia.
"An increase in income for that family could translate into purchasing school supplies, eating more nutritional food and expanding the family business."