Coffee: love. Starbucks: hate?

So, as a college student, I get to hear, see, and experience a bazillion amazing things. A couple of weeks ago, I sat through a lecture, watching a video, horrified at what I was seeing. It was a documentary by the title of “Black Gold: A Film About Coffee & Trade”.

1) Ethiopian coffee farmers trade in their coffee for approximately $0.03, which Starbucks then uses to convert into a $3.00 drink. And we buy these drinks, walking down the street, merrily thinking how amazing and life-saving coffee, and in extension Starbucks, is. 

2) Raising the price to just $0.05 would drastically change the lives of Ethiopian coffee farmers.

3) Starbucks, Kraft, Nestlé, Proctor and Gamble, and Sara Lee refused to be interviewed for the documentary.

These 3 points struck me the most.

Starbucks officials say that they are trying to improve this crisis by paying $1.28 for a pound of coffee. But no one knows who this money really goes to. Starbucks uses middlemen for its purchase of coffee, so it is safe to think that a very small amount of the supposed $1.28 actually reaches the coffee farmers.

Let’s do the math: a pound of coffee can make 45 8 oz. cups of coffee. By selling these at an approximate $3, Starbucks gets $135 for a pound of coffee. The coffee farmers get $1.35, according to Black Gold’s numbers, which I trust more than the general statistics Starbucks gives.

I tend to have a duality in the way I see the world and the economy. It’s a dog eat dog world. I respect people who can slash each other to get to the top. Survival of the fittest, baby. That’s the game of life. But I also see humanity and humbleness as attractive qualities. We might as well make this a better place to live, if not for us, then our future generations, right?

I decided that day that I would never drink Starbucks. Unfortunately, the only good and cheap coffee I can get is Starbucks. So, call me a hypocrite, but I still drink Starbucks. And until I manage to pay off the million dollar debt I’ll acquire from medical school, I plan to drink Starbucks, unless something even cheaper comes along.

But that doesn’t mean I’m all for the Darwinian concept of forgetting the poor and helpless. At least I can be happy that I’m buying coffee from a company that has acknowledged and is in the process of [hopefully] changing its disgraceful ways. And I’m still helping and will help the community in ways I see as progressive to mankind.

So now, I leave you to ponder whether or not you would like to support, diss, or remain ignorant of this problem.