The crusade against palm oil is looking more and more like a chasm between the rich importers and the two developing exporters, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Every day there are articles published on the deforestation, climate change, wildlife destruction, land grabbing from indigenous people, and other negative effects of palm oil.
Scant attention is payed towards the development brought by palm oil. The millions of small holders who benefit economically from oil palm. The land schemes which have raised living standards for millions throughout rural Malaysia.
Instead, rich countries blame Malaysia and Indonesia for the negative environmental effect of palm oil. They forget that the exporters are merely grabbing the cash layed out by importers and using it for economic gain. It is easy for the rich importers to criticise while they subsidise the millions of soybean, rapeseed and other "traditional" oil planters with billions of dollars.
Every cent of economic gain is important for developing nations to raise the living standards of their people. The importers should not just blow hot air, threatening to reduce imports, and instead provide significant incentives to improve planting practices. Instead of raging about deforestation, provide real incentives for exporters to maintain existing forests while forgoing the economic gains provided by more palm oil.
Especially oxymoronic is how environmental campaigners in the developed world criticise their petroleum companies and fossil fuel usage but still find the time to demonise biofuels derived from palm oil and cane ethanol, the two main cash crops in developing countries.
The balance between environmentalism and economics is easily achievable. Vitally, the rhetoric must be enhanced to reflect a concern for the livelihoods of people in developing nations.
The big picture is beyond dollars and cents, fewer orang-utans, and emissions, but also about allowing children to go to school in Indonesia, one of Asia's poorest countries, jobs for people in Brazil and Malaysia, food for families in developing nations, and more.
Monday, 25 June 2007
Thursday, 21 June 2007
Premium Coffee?
Starbucks finally lost out to Ethiopia in the battle they were fighting to keep Ethiopian coffee cheap. (Starbucks press release)
The price of coffee on the world market was US$2.29 a kilogramme in fiscal 2006, as stated in their CSR report. Now you know the money premium coffee chains make off of you.
Starbucks made US$564 million in net earnings last year. But look at the bigger picture. Starbucks is just one of the many premium coffee chains making billions.
I'm sure you have seen Starbucks' coffee board. Coffees from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Indonesia. According to the IMF, 65th, 96th, 75th, 102nd, 181st, 142nd, 168th, and 116th respectively in a list of 181 countries ranked by nominal per capita GDP. 5 out of the 8 main countries that Starbucks sources coffee from is outside the top 100 in the list. Has Starbucks contributed to improving living standards in these countries? There isn't any evidence to show.
Yet, Starbucks has fought the Ethiopian government for the past 3 years to try to stop Ethiopia from trademarking their specialty coffees, which would enable Ethiopian coffee to move up the value chain, thus allowing for higher raw coffee bean prices.
Ethiopia is the poorest country Starbucks sources its coffee from, and it has used much-needed resources to win this important argument. It is a pity that the other source countries just cannot spare their scarce resources to forge similar agreements.
Still can't live without your Starbucks?
The price of coffee on the world market was US$2.29 a kilogramme in fiscal 2006, as stated in their CSR report. Now you know the money premium coffee chains make off of you.
Starbucks made US$564 million in net earnings last year. But look at the bigger picture. Starbucks is just one of the many premium coffee chains making billions.
I'm sure you have seen Starbucks' coffee board. Coffees from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Indonesia. According to the IMF, 65th, 96th, 75th, 102nd, 181st, 142nd, 168th, and 116th respectively in a list of 181 countries ranked by nominal per capita GDP. 5 out of the 8 main countries that Starbucks sources coffee from is outside the top 100 in the list. Has Starbucks contributed to improving living standards in these countries? There isn't any evidence to show.
Yet, Starbucks has fought the Ethiopian government for the past 3 years to try to stop Ethiopia from trademarking their specialty coffees, which would enable Ethiopian coffee to move up the value chain, thus allowing for higher raw coffee bean prices.
Ethiopia is the poorest country Starbucks sources its coffee from, and it has used much-needed resources to win this important argument. It is a pity that the other source countries just cannot spare their scarce resources to forge similar agreements.
Still can't live without your Starbucks?
Saturday, 2 June 2007
Who's perfect?
I feel a sort of guilt every day. I feel guilty that I live in relative affluence, in the face of people who live in poverty.
I can't stand it that there are people who can't find a job to pay for food for their children, while I earn around 300% the minimum wage in my comfy part-time desk job in the middle of the city.
I thought I was doing the right thing, not living off my parents, trying to earn the luxuries I crave by working towards them. But it does feel awkward to know that by taking this job, I have probably deprived a person who really needs the money, that is not just for luxuries, of a decent-paying job.
Its difficult to get through everyday life knowing that when I'm having my 3rd meal of the day, a child goes without dinner probably in my neighburhood, definitely somewhere in my country. The country which is one of the world's fastest growing economies. I don't know if I could live my life, at its current standards, in one of the world's least developed economies. I wouldn't have stood the guilt.
I'm thankful for every single thing I have in my life, even the things I sometimes disagree with, feel could be better, my parents,my shoes, my hair, my laptop, my stuff; because I know its more than many, many people have.
The only way I try to starve the guilt is by taking the opportunities that I have.
I believe thats the only way for someone who hasn't experienced true hunger or emptiness in their lives to lessen the feeling of inequality when comparing standards of living.
To take all the opportunities that you have in your life and using them to create new opportunities for people who don't have many is the best thing that you could do with your life.
And I am doing my best to fulfil that ideal. But whos perfect?
I can't stand it that there are people who can't find a job to pay for food for their children, while I earn around 300% the minimum wage in my comfy part-time desk job in the middle of the city.
I thought I was doing the right thing, not living off my parents, trying to earn the luxuries I crave by working towards them. But it does feel awkward to know that by taking this job, I have probably deprived a person who really needs the money, that is not just for luxuries, of a decent-paying job.
Its difficult to get through everyday life knowing that when I'm having my 3rd meal of the day, a child goes without dinner probably in my neighburhood, definitely somewhere in my country. The country which is one of the world's fastest growing economies. I don't know if I could live my life, at its current standards, in one of the world's least developed economies. I wouldn't have stood the guilt.
I'm thankful for every single thing I have in my life, even the things I sometimes disagree with, feel could be better, my parents,my shoes, my hair, my laptop, my stuff; because I know its more than many, many people have.
The only way I try to starve the guilt is by taking the opportunities that I have.
I believe thats the only way for someone who hasn't experienced true hunger or emptiness in their lives to lessen the feeling of inequality when comparing standards of living.
To take all the opportunities that you have in your life and using them to create new opportunities for people who don't have many is the best thing that you could do with your life.
And I am doing my best to fulfil that ideal. But whos perfect?
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