US coffee chain Starbucks is denying Ethiopia earnings of (forhindrer Etiopien i at tjene) 88 million US dollar (ca. en halv milliard DKR) a year, according to the British NGO, Oxfam, reports BBC Online Thursday.
The UK charity says Starbucks asked the National Coffee Association (NCA) to block the poor countrys bid to trademark three types of coffee bean in the US.
Oxfam says poor farmers would have benefited from the move but the NCA says there is no economic case to support the charitys claims. Starbucks denies initiating opposition to the trademark application.
The Ethiopian government filed its applications to trademark its most famous coffee bean names – Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe – in US courts last year.
Oxfam claims that Starbucks flagged up the application to the NCA – of which the firm is a leading member. The NCA then filed its opposition at the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Oxfams Phil Bloomer said the charity had worked with Starbucks in the past and appealed to the firm to “act responsibly”.
Berhanu Kebede, Ethiopias ambassador to the UK, said that the international community should support the countrys efforts to ensure farmers got a fair reward for their hard work. – This campaign has a pivotal (vigtig) role in redressing the unfairness of the international trading system, he noted.
