Starbucks ad rebuts Oxfam charge

NEW YORK —  Starbucks, the icon of U.S. coffee culture, strongly defended Sunday its business practices with poor coffee farmers around the world after it was accused of blocking the U.S. trademark application of coffee growers from Ethiopia.

Starbucks said in a full-page ad published Sunday in the New York Times that it had worked to strengthen coffee farms in many parts of the world.

“We do these things -- in Ethiopia, in Guatemala, in Indonesia and other coffee-growing communities around the globe -- not just because it’s the right way to work but because it’s the smart way to work,” the ad said.

Ethiopia and British charity Oxfam accused Starbucks last month of stopping the African country from trademarking its coffee, denying farmers potential income of about $95 million a year.

Oxfam said the U.S. coffee shop chain prevented Ethiopia from securing trademark protection for two of its best-known beans, Sidamo and Harar.

A blocking bid was put in by the U.S. National Coffee Assn., and Oxfam accused Starbucks of being behind the action. Starbucks denied the accusation.

Starbucks said it provided affordable credit to small coffee farmers in the world so they could build bridges, dig wells and build water treatment facilities and grow coffee in “a sustainable, profitable, ecologically sound way.” No figures were provided by the company in its ad.

If Ethiopia, one of the world’s poorest countries, had been successful in trademarking its coffee beans with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, it would have allowed the country to control the use of the beans in the market, giving its farmers more of the retail price.

“Securing the trademark for its Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe coffee beans could have allowed the country to increase its negotiation leverage through control of the names and ultimately [derive] a greater share of the retail price in the global market,” Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.