Currently, the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is scheduled to enter into force at the end of 2026 for medium and immense companies and at the beginning of the third quarter of 2027 for petite ones, but it is nevertheless of great importance to the global coffee industry. The EUDR regulation, originally passed in 2022, has already seen two delays in its implementation, largely due to concerns from both coffee producers and industry watchdog groups about the detrimental impact it will have on petite farmers without the ability to prove that their coffee is not grown on deforested land.
This led to an entirely fresh initiative known as Coffee canopy partnership. (Not to be confused with the Indian specialty coffee importer Canopy coffee partners.) The Coffee Canopy Partnership, created by JDE Peets with some of the world’s largest coffee buyers, is “the industry’s first global mapping initiative to accelerate the transition towards a deforestation-free coffee sector.”
Announced on Wednesday, April 22IIthe initiative is based on collaboration with the Louis Dreyfus Company, Sucden, Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, Touton, Sucafina and Tchibo and will exploit “advanced satellite technology” to map remote coffee plantations in order to “identify areas of forest loss and work with governments to restore the landscape and prevent future deforestation.”
Due to the current shape of the EUDR regulation, any coffee grown on land classified as forest after December 2020 will not be eligible for import into the EU. In addition to shifting the burden of proof to the producer, the law relies on maps that could potentially misclassify existing coffee plantations, particularly those using sustainable agricultural practices such as agroforestry and shade farming, as forest areas.
Using satellite imaging, artificial intelligence and field validation, the Coffee Canopy partnership seeks to create a more true base map for 2020, as well as an updated map for 2024-2025, “to support the identification of potential fresh land and coffee production areas, and areas where forest changes have occurred since 2020.”
The program starts this month in East Africa and aims to map 1.2 million square kilometers of coffee land in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda. Initial mapping is expected to be completed by June this year, with a global coffee plantation map expected to be completed in 2027 “through expanded industry and institutional co-investment.”
Which is objectively good. Any support given to farmers rejected by a well-meaning but ultimately flawed bureaucracy is undoubtedly positive. That said, it’s tough not to read the Coffee Canopy Partnership’s list of partners as a list of people whose livelihoods have been achieved at the expense of severely deforested lands that they now want to protect. If the world’s largest coffee buyers weren’t looking for low, low prices, there would be much less need to clear out forests to make more land.
It’s like Hot dog truck sketch from . All these companies dress up as warm dogs and look for the guy who did it so they can spank him, while everyone in the area knows exactly who crashed the car through the window. The only difference is that in this case, the car crash actually does some good for a change. Thank you, warm dog guys, I guess?
