BLACK GOLD: Film Documents how Ethiopian Coffee Growers Grapple with Globalization

Coffee is a universal experience enjoyed by billions of people on a daily basis and is part of an industry worth over $80 billion a year. But the people behind the product are in crisis with millions of growers fast becoming bankrupt. Nowhere more evident is this paradox than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee.

The Coffee industry is dominated by multinationals, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. BLACK GOLD, directed and produced by Nick Francis and Marc Francis, tells the story behind an attempt to make globalization work for the producers of coffee.

Tadesse Meskela manages the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co-operative Union, representing over 74,000 coffee farmers. The union buys coffee from 101 individual co-operatives spread across southern Ethiopia. BLACK GOLD follows Meskela on his mission to save struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. As his union’s farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Meskela travels the world to find buyers willing to pay a fair price—a better price than the one set by the international commodities exchange.

Against the backdrop of Tadesse’s journey to London and Seattle, the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world’s coffee trade becomes apparent. New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organization reveal the many challenges Tadesse faces in his quest for a long term solution for his farmers.

From Nick Francis and Marc Francis, the directors and producers of BLACK GOLD:

We were provoked to make a film about coffee after it was announced at the end of 2002 that Ethiopia was facing another famine. Twenty years earlier in 1984, people across the world had been motivated to respond to this crisis by giving aid. The difference this time was that coffee farmers were being caught up in this new food crisis while the global coffee industry was booming.

We wanted to urgently remind audiences that through just one cup of coffee, we are inextricably connected to the livelihoods of millions of people around the world who are struggling to survive.

Watch trailer:


Web link: http://www.blackgoldmovie.com/story.php