There’s an enigmatic process by which a coffee bean transforms into a global commodity. From remote farmsteads and steep hillsides, it enters global markets as a graded, standardized product, yet its journey, like much of global trade, remains largely opaque. The 19th-century Dutch writer Eduard Douwes Dekker, known as Multatuli, captured this well in Max Havelaar, suggesting that understanding this process was akin to the exclusive domain of coffee brokers.
But the European Union aims to change that reports Foreign Policy describing the new EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). With a new initiative to combat deforestation, the EU seeks transparency in the origins of coffee—as well as cocoa, rubber, soy, beef, palm oil, and timber. The EUDR, expected to come into force by 2025, requires companies importing these products to trace them back to their fields of origin. This involves geolocating millions of farms across continents, a feat that effectively maps the agricultural supply chain worldwide.
Unlike a traditional map, however, the EUDR is poised to reshape the practices of multinational buyers, middlemen, and rural collection stations alike. Implementing this policy may be particularly challenging in the coffee and cocoa sectors, especially in Africa, where millions of small farmers rather than large commercial plantations grow these crops. For African farmers—situated at the base of a complex, unequal system—the push for “traceability” could disrupt their access to European markets, yet it also holds the potential to benefit them.
The EU is a significant consumer and trade hub for tropical commodities, importing roughly one-third of the world’s coffee and half of its cocoa. As such, by simply adjusting its own requirements, Brussels has the power to set new standards for farmers worldwide.
The EUDR mandates that the seven regulated commodities must not come from land deforested after 2020. Trase, a nonprofit tracking deforestation and commodity trade, estimated that EU imports of these goods contributed to 736 square miles of global deforestation annually between 2019 and 2021—over 10 times the size of Brussels. Cocoa, palm oil, and coffee accounted for a significant portion of this deforestation at 34%, 19%, and 13%, respectively. To prove compliance, importers must provide geolocation data pinpointing farm locations, using single coordinates for small farms and detailed polygons for larger ones. Cross-referenced with satellite data, these locations can reveal whether trees were cleared. Notably, the EUDR applies even if the land was legally deforested under national law, with violations subject to fines of up to 4% of a company’s EU turnover. The regulation aligns with the EU’s broader carbon neutrality goals for 2050.
Originally set to take effect at the end of this year, the regulation faced delays after industry groups, the United States, some Global South nations, and several EU countries criticized the timeframe as unrealistic. In response, the European Commission proposed extending the preparation period to 2025, a recommendation that the European Parliament and Council are now evaluating.
The delay has drawn mixed reactions. SEATINI, a Ugandan NGO focused on trade issues, welcomed the extension, while groups like Human Rights Watch voiced concern for the potential harm to forests and affected communities. Nestlé, Mars Wrigley, and other major chocolate companies have opposed the delay, highlighting risks to investments made in preparation for the regulation.
Despite the timeline, traceability will become the norm. This shift is especially significant for rural Africa, which supplies around 85% of the EU’s cocoa and roughly 13% of its coffee. Many multinational buyers still lack precise information about the origins of their products.
One reason is that traceability has rarely proven profitable except in specialty markets like high-grade coffee, where consumers are willing to pay a premium. Many African governments also lack robust land records and struggle to prevent large-scale smuggling of cash crops across borders.
A deeper reason lies in past reforms of Africa’s cash crop trade. During and after WWII, African states established marketing boards as the primary entities for exporting cocoa and coffee. While often inefficient and low-paying for farmers, these boards brought some structure to agricultural trade. In the 1980s and 1990s, these systems were dismantled under pressure from the IMF and World Bank. Some nations, like Ghana, introduced gradual reforms, preserving certain marketing board functions. Others, such as Uganda, embraced the free market more rapidly, leaving their agricultural systems to adapt independently.
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