I sympathize but there are many convenient absences of information

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Black Gold Forums / BlackGold / I sympathize but there are many convenient absences of information

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mambomedia
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# Posted: 15 Jul 2009 07:30
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I agree Ethiopian farmers should be paid more for their coffee but the filmmakers skirted around some major issues affecting this:

Brazil, the number one coffee producer, has raised overall production to such a level at various times over the last near century that the market has been flooded and prices have plummeted. Over-production is arguably the most important cause of price drops. These are not small farmers but massive plantations.

Coverage of WTO Cancun was confusing and seemed to endorse removal of subsidies for farmers in industrialized countries. Would this help coffee growers? They need subsidies to survive, realistically, like farmers everywhere. Otherwise market fluctuations will destroy them. And what exactly are the trade regulations governing coffee production in Ethiopia? I understand that it may have been to complicated to explain in a mass audience film but I would have appreciated a little more detail on the website, and a little less "Take action:buy the DVD!".

The relationship of the WTO to coffee production in Ethiopia or even agriculture in general was very unclear in the film. The only thing I took away from that sequence was that the negotiations excluded many smaller countries, which we know, but how does this affect small farmers? Where does fair trade meet free trade?

Thanks for opening up a good discussion.

El Jibaro

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