Black Gold
Premiered a decade ago at the BeyondTV International Film Festival in Swansea, Black Gold set a new standard for documentary film making with its stunning cinematography.
Black Gold documents the atrocious state of affairs for coffee growers in Ethiopia as seen through the eyes of one man as he tries to obtain a better price. The conditions of the coffee growers contrasted with the people who drink coffee at Starbucks. Starbucks, along with other other major players in the world coffee market, refused to be interviewed.
Sidamo is the region of Ethiopia from where Starbucks buys its coffee. People starving, not because of drought, because of the low price paid for coffee.
Though that raises a different issue. Food sovereignty, not growing cash crops the price of which is determined by external markets over which growers have no control.
Black Gold leaves many questions unanswered.
Mention was made of the collapse of the World Coffee Agreement, that there has been a sharp increase in retail sales of coffee. But this was not pursued or enlarged upon.
In a normal free market, if demand doubles, then we would expect the price to to the growers to increase, and yet in the ten years before this film was premiered the world market collapsed. Why?
World Coffee Agreement helped stabilise prices, it also kept rubbish coffee off the world market. The market was then flooded with rubbish coffee. Cheap coffee is chemically adulterated to masquerade as quality coffee. The world market is controlled by a handful of large multinational companies who dictate the prices. Vietnam, not a traditional coffee grower, was encouraged by the World Bank to grow coffee, with guaranteed contracts and prices. Ten years on, when Vietnam was ready to sell, there were no buyers. Vietnam flooded the market with cheap coffee. Vietnam is now the second biggest producer after Brazil.
Our hero checked the shelves of a British supermarket. He noticed consumers were not discriminating towards Fairtrade coffee. But it is worse than that, they are unable to discriminate quality coffee and will drink any old rubbish, hence the mass sales of branded instant coffee, the rise of chains like Costa, Caffe Nero and Starbucks that dominate our town centres.
Surprisingly, one of the supermarkets stocking quality fairtrade coffee from Ethiopia under its own brand name was Asda.
If you want quality coffee, buy from an indie coffee shop, fresh roasted coffee beans, not beans from a supermarket.
The film is now a little dated, though still well worth watching.
At the time speciality coffee was almost no existent, it was there, but you had to know where to look, as Michaele Weissman documents in God in a Cup.
Black Gold deals with commodity coffee, the price fixed by commodity markets and fairtrade.
Fairtrade is long past its sell by date. A decade ago it was a useful tool to beat Costa and tax-dodging Starbucks, that an infinitesimal part of their expensive undrinkable coffee found its way back to the growers. Now fairtrade is little more than a marketing tool, a brand to make middle class shoppers feel good.
Far more important is Direct Trade. Direct Trade provides traceabilty from the coffee cup back to the grower, everyone wants high quality, the grower who meets high quality can command a higher price
A couple of hundred years ago, fashionable London hung out in London coffee houses. It was the meeting place of men of letters, journalists, scientists, writers, it was where the beginnings of the stock market arose. Today, London is where world coffee prices are determined, where traders buy and sell other people’s livelihoods.
Since the film was made, the percentage of a cup of coffee going to farmers has decreased not increased.
If we look at three periods, 1971–1980, 1981–1990, 1991–1999, the percentage of earnings to growers has shrunk (from an already small percentage), whereas to consuming countries (which started at over 50%) has dramatically increased.
Caffeine is an alkaloid, a narcotic. Poetic justice then that coffee farmers in Ethiopia started grubbing up their coffee trees to grow more rewarding narcotics.
Growers in Ethiopia are now recognising the need to grow high quality speciality coffee.
Ethiopian Coffee Roasters found on South Bank Street Food Market Friday, Saturday and Sunday is a good place to try speciality coffee from Ethiopia.
The influence of Black Gold can be seen in A Film About Coffee. The main difference, the focus on speciality not commodity coffee, the difference it makes to the coffee we drink and the impact upon the lives of growers.
