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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 25, 2000)
Coffee agreement will benefit poorest growers By Lisa Lipman The Associated Press BOSTON — The nation’s largest coffee sellers in the past have bare ly concerned themselves with the Third World farmers whose crops enabled their businesses to thrive. Now, however, they are waking up and smelling the coffee. Starbucks, Green Mountain Cof fee, Peet’s Coffee and Tea, Dean’s Beans, and 78 other gourmet coffee sellers have agreed to start a line of coffee purchased from farmers un der “fair trade” regulations. Those regulations include pay ing farmers at least $1.26 per pound regardless of how low the coffee market drops, and paying them 60 percent of the cost prior to shipment. The companies have signed on through the efforts of Qxfam Amer ica, which fights poverty world wide, and Transfair America, a nonprofit organization that works to promote fairly traded food im ports. “We think that, one cup at a time, we can make an enormous difference in the communities that are the poorest in the world,” said Barbara Fiorito, president of Ox fam’s board of directors. Coffee market prices are low, which means that coffee farmers from Third World countries often make only $3 a day selling their beans to companies that can make almost that much on one cup in the United States. “It’s not enough to live on, and a little too much to die on,” said Rob Everts of wholesale coffee seller Equal Exchange, the first company to sign on. Starbucks will start selling a ( ( The fair trade move ment is fairly new in the U.S.... we’re building this market as we speak, aa Sue Mecklenburg ' * Director of Environmental and Community Affairs Starbucks line of fair trade coffee in 2,300 stores on Oct. 4. The coffee will sell for $11.45 a bag. Peet’s has al ready started selling its own line of fair trade coffee for $10.95. Equal Exchange sells its coffee for $8.99. Equal Exchange is the only company at which 100 percent of the coffee meets fair trade stan dards. Starbucks’ Director of Environ mental and Community Affairs Sue Mecklenburg said her compa ny will sell the fair trade coffee for one year, then evaluate whether selling more than one kind of it is feasible. “The fair .trade movement is fairly new in the U.S. ... we’re building this market as we speak,” she said. The gourmet coffee market has gotten increasingly crowded over the years. Americans spend $18 billion a year on coffee, more than any other nation. Coffee is the sec ond most heavily traded commod ity after oil. The two largest coffee importers — Maxwell House and Folgers — have not signed on to the fair trade agreement. Transfair executive director Paul Rice dis misses the idea that the companies are signing on more as a marketing ploy than as an altruistic inclina tion. “'Sure a lot of it may be lip serv ice,” he said. “But I see a lot of companies really trying to walk the walk.” THEATRE |resents Eugene's Premiere Sept 29, 30- 8 PM UO Tickets- 346-4363 Hult Center- 682-5000 UT Box Office- 346-4191 (Days of Performances Only) J Students Receive 8% discount on all items except sale items • classes beginning to intermediate • fine quality yams, needles & accessories • patterns, magazines and books 2821 Oak Street (in Southtowne Shops) 484-0430 o M-F, 10am-7pm, 8 Sat., 10am-5pm, Sun, 2pm-4:30pm Hot off the Press and into your hands Oregon Daily Emerald Circulating 10,000 papers daily Auto Pros Inc Locally owned DOWNTOWN 1320 Willamette 485-2356 *2075 West 11th 344-0007 " OPEN Sundays*^*. ► *11. 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BE ALL YOU CAN BEf www.goarmy.com Bootleg tape a surprise to Gore camp By Toni Raum Associated Press Writer AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Vice President Al Gore declared Sun day that he doesn’t know how his campaign ended up with a bootleg videotape of George W. Bush re hearsing for next month’s debates. But, he told reporters, “If some body in the Bush campaign keeps sending confidential internal data to us, we’ll keep turning it over to the FBI.” That comment, in a conference call with reporters, came as the two camps traded new accusations over the mysterious package — and whether there is a Gore spy in Bush’s cam paign. Bush op era t i v e s seized upon the Gore cam paign’s sus pension of a junior staffer in the matter to hurl new accusations at Gore’s Nashville, Tenn.-based operation. “The more the FBI inquires, the more nervous they’re getting in Nashville,” said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. The Gore staffer, Michael Doyne, 28, was suspended after he ac knowledged boasting of a “mole” planted in Bush’s campaign. Doyne now insists the “mole” was a product of his imagination and Gore spokesman Mark Fabiani said campaign officials do not be lieve there is any such Democratic spy. But Fleischer said Doyne’s sus pension “raises questions on whether others in the Gore cam paign have information” obtained through political espionage. “It defies credibility,” Fleischer said of the whole incident. GOP running mate Dick Cheney said there’s cause for concern. “There seems to be a little bit of smoke there. Whether or not there’s a fire, I don’t know,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” On Sept. 13, a package includ ing the tape arrived at the Wash ington office of former Rep. Thomas Downey of New York, who had been helping Gore pre pare for the debates. It had an Austin postmark. Gore told reporters that Doyne “has signed a sworn affidavit that he has no knowledge whatsoever of any so-called mole or Gore sym pathizer within the George Bush presidential campaign. That’s all I know about it.” As to the tape, “I don’t know who sent it,” Gore said. “I’ve read the reports that the FBI has identi fied a Bush campaign official as the person responsible but I have no knowledge other than that.” Bush campaign officials have denied strongly that anyone in volved in debate preparations sent the tape to Gore’s campaign. However, they have not ruled out the possibility that a junior staffer may have stumbled upon a copy of the tape and passed it on, or that a security lapse may have allowed the tape to be copied out side campaign headquarters. FBI agents were in Austin on Friday interviewing staffers with direct access to debate preparation material. Both candidates stayed close to home Sunday — Gore in Washing ton, Bush in Austin — while the race was conducted by conference calls laying out the coming week. Handling his own phone work, Gore promised a “detailed book” — 74 pages, an aide said — on how he would modernize and ex pand Medicare. “Medicare faces insolvency un less we act now. I want to make a rock-solid commitment ^ to Medicare,” Gore said. “The other side treats the surplus as a piggy bank for a tax cut.” Bush, just back from a two-day trip to Florida, was leaving Mon day on a three-day trip to Oregon, Washington state and California during which he will promote his education plans. Timed to coincide the trip is a new Republican National Commit tee ad suggesting the nation is in the grips of an “education reces sion.” Citing low test scores, particu larly on math and science, the ad implies that part of the blame rests with the Clinton-Gore administra tion. It also praises Bush’s record as governor of Texas. The ad will begin airing later in the week in 17 states, Fleischer said. “Reading and math scares na tionally have been declining for the past 10 years,” Fleischer said. “There’s a real worry in America about whether children will be safe in school.” Bush’s trip will include an ap pearance Tuesday on CNN’s “Lar ry King Live.” Bush has proposed a $47 billion, 10-year education plan that would boost spending for literacy pro grams, college scholarships and programs that improve pupil achievement. He also wants vouchers that poor families could use for private-school tuition. Bush’s camp also welcomed new weekend polls suggesting he had reclaimed some of his losses to Gore. It also confirmed reports of sharply reduced advertising in Illinois, a key battleground state, but denied that was because the campaign felt Gore’s lead there had become unassailable. Fleischer said the cutback was largely a response to a decision by Democrats to scale back their own advertising there. “We keep an eye on each other’s advertising and that’s what you’re seeing ... Illinois is definitely a battleground state. We’re going to contest it,” he said. Gore spokesman Fabiani paint ed a different picture of the ad cut back, telling CNN the decision to pull out of Illinois is “a major, ma jor statement about where this election is going.” Associated Press writer Sandra Sobieraj contributed to this report. Bush to campaign today in Beaverton, topics include education PORTLAND (AP) — Locked in tight race for Oregon’s increasingly important elector J votes, Republican George W. Bush will discuss educa tion on his visit to Beaverton Monday. The Texas governor will then fly to Spokane, Wash., to argue that the region can’t afford the electricity and irrigation losses would result from breaching dams on the Snake River to help save salmon. While Vice President Al Gore will be in Florida talking about Medicare, Bush will hold a late morning “town hall” meeting at Bethanv Elementarv School, an area of fast-growing housing develop ment in west Beaverton. Ari Fleischer, a Bush campaign spokesman in Austin, Texas, told reporters Sunday that Bush will ar gue that the United States is in an “educational recession” demon strated by poor test scores. That claim will likely be chal lenged. Educational experts say it’s difficult to compare test scores across nations, particularly because achievement tests are taken by a much broader cross-section of American students than in many foreign countries. Fleischer said Bush will talk at a Spokane airport rally about how breaching the dams would “hurt peoples’ livelihoods in Oregon, Washington and the entire region.” Bush has ruled out dam-breaching, while Gore says it should be kept as an option if other efforts to save en dangered salmon in the Columbia River basin fail to produce results. This will be the fifth visit to the region by Bush or his running mate, Dick Cheney, in less than two months, and it signals the increas ing importance of the two states for the Republican ticket.
