Starbucks' sustainability claims all marketing, little substance

The author found Starbucks plaques like this one on farmhouses in the Nariño area. This story is part of the cover story project on the global food and clothing chain in The Christian Science MonitorWeekly issue of July 22, 2013.

Starbucks coffee farmers have never heard of Starbucks

Despite the siren logo on their property, some Colombian coffee farmers receive no benefit from Starbucks' sustainability program.

By Kelsey Timmerman, Christian Science Monitor / July 21, 2013

EL TABLÓN DE GOMEZ, COLOMBIA

"How far do we go for a better cup of Colombian coffee?" Starbucks asks on its website. "Six thousand feet – straight up. Sounds extreme, we know. But high atop the majestic Andes, in a rugged landscape of simmering volcanoes, is where the finest coffee beans in Colombia like to grow."

Not only did I want to drink this coffee after reading that narrative, I wanted to visit. I wanted to meet the people who grow my coffee. So in the spring of 2012, I contacted the Starbucks public relations and customer service departments repeatedly, telling them I was working on a book about the global food economy and asking them to point me in the right direction. I finally received an answer from a customer service agent: "Unfortunately, the information you are requesting is proprietary."

So I went to Colombia and found the farmers on my own. Starbucks was right; it was extreme. High atop the majestic Andes in a rugged landscape of simmering volcanoes, I straddled a coffee tree as if it were a fireman's pole and hung on for dear life. The shivering trunk was the only thing keeping me from falling thousands of feet down the volcanic slope.

(Continued here.)