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Starbucks in Costa Rica, Now Ethiopia

Costa Rica Coffee

Starbucks Corp plans to open a farmer support center in Ethiopia's capital next year to help growers improve the quality of their coffee crops and boost production using sustainable practices.

The world's largest specialty coffee retailer opened a similar center in Costa Rica three years ago and says the one in Addis Ababa will be the first of its kind in Africa.

Starbucks has not set a date for opening the new center. At a February coffee conference in Addis Ababa, executives said it was expected to open in 2007, but on Wednesday, Starbucks spokeswoman Stacey Krum said the company is still scouting out possible sites.

The center's goals will include getting more farmers to take part in a program that grades them on such things as how well they shade their coffee trees and how much they pay their workers. High grades can win growers higher prices, longer-term contracts and other incentives from Starbucks.

East African farmers grow about half the world's specialty coffee, and most growers live in poverty. Producers have increasingly sought to brand their coffee in hopes of winning higher prices.

Earlier this year, Starbucks and the Ethiopian government agreed to work together to promote three of the African nation's prized specialty coffees.

The licensing, distribution and marketing deal signed in June supports the country's bid to win trademarks for the coffee names Yirgacheffe, Harar, and Sidamo, which officials believe will benefit farmers.

Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz and other top executives were in Addis Ababa on Wednesday to meet with government leaders, coffee farmers, exporters and others on how to strengthen their partnership and improve the Ethiopian coffee industry.

Seattle-based Starbucks buys about 300 million pounds of coffee a year and posted $9.4 billion in sales in fiscal 2007, which ended on September 30.

The company said its coffee purchases from Ethiopia increased nearly fivefold from 2002 to 2006. It bought 6 percent of its coffee from Africa in 2006 and plans to double that by 2009, Dub Hay, Starbucks' senior vice-president of coffee procurement, said earlier this year.