Africa wants more time and money to comply with EU deforestation regulation 

A farmer picks cocoa pods from the trees he cultivates on his land in the forest at Dahou village near Duekoue in western Ivory Coast (April 2004). Keystone/AP/Ben Curtis)

African cocoa - and coffee- producing countries are racing against the clock to avoid being excluded from the European market. A proposal to delay implementation would give them more time to prepare.  

Consumers in the European Union account for about 10% of global deforestation. The 27-member bloc’s first attempt at tackling the problem was the introduction of the EU Timber Legislation (EUTR) in 2013. The legislation prohibited the sale of illegally harvested wood on the EU market. A little over ten years later, the EU plans to implement a new legislation known as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) that will replace the EUTR. Besides timber, the EUDR also targets other commodities responsible for deforestation worldwide such as cocoa, coffee, beef, palm oil, rubber and soy. The regulation is slated to come into force on December 30, 2024.  

Companies wishing to sell these commodities and related products in the EU will have to prove that these products are not linked to deforestation or forest degradation. Swiss companies such as Nestlé, Barry Callebaut and Lindt & Sprüngli have pledged to have deforestation-free supply chains by 2025 and have developed their own cocoa traceability systems to achieve their commitments. For example, Lindt & Sprüngli invested CHF27.5 million ($31.8 million) in 2022 into sourcing sustainable cocoa. This has put Switzerland in a decent position to comply with EUDR norms: the share of Swiss imports of sustainable cocoa has gone up from 50% in 2017 to 82% in 2023.  

Switzerland watching from the sidelines 

Switzerland is not a member of the EU, but the deforestation regulation will also affect it. The Alpine nation was the top exporter of chocolate to the bloc at 62,000 tonnes in 2023 – equivalent to 36% of all EU chocolate imports. 

“Time is of the essence: without a solution by the end of the year, access to the EU market will become massively more difficult,” said Chocosuisse in a press release in February. The Association of Swiss Chocolate Manufacturers was responding to the Swiss government’s decision to not introduce similar regulations in Switzerland but instead assess the regulatory impact on Swiss companies. 

According to Christian Robin, CEO of the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa (SWISSCO), exchanges between the Swiss government and private sector on the EUDR have intensified in recent months.  

But it is not just companies that stand to lose out if they cannot prove they’ve done their due diligence. Countries which export these commodities could also see a drop in revenue if they are excluded from the European market. According to a Rabobank analysis, complying with EUDR can cost between 0.29% to 4.3% of the value of imports into the EU. Africa and South America have the most to lose. For example, a recent report by thinktank ODIExternal link estimates that the EUDR will cost coffee exporter Ethiopia (coffee accounts for 30-35% total export earnings) an 18.4% drop in exports and a 0.6% loss in GDP. 

To avoid a significant drop in their revenues, African nations are in a mad race to register their farmers (incorporate their photo, national ID, farm boundary and coffee production history) onto a national database to ensure that those who clear forests can be excluded from supply chains. This includes the laborious process of mapping individual farm boundaries to guarantee traceability of commodities such as coffee back to individual farms. This will allow any expansion of farm boundaries into forest areas to be identified.  

“Registering farmers is not difficult, but it is not easy either,” says Kajiru Francis Kissenge, director of coffee development at the Tanzania Coffee Board.  

Tanzania (half its coffee exports are to the EU) started preparing for the EUDR in September. It expects to finish registering coffee farmers by January 2025, a little after the current deadline.  

“Most of the farmers are in cooperatives. The challenge is getting precise GPS locations of their farms. Farms are close to each other and we have to find precise mapping technology that ensures there is no overlap in farm boundaries,” Kissenge says. 

According to him, to save money, the Tanzania Coffee Board first started the farm-mapping process using free digital tools, but they were not accurate enough and showed an overlap of farm boundaries. They are now in the process of sourcing more precise technology that needs to be budgeted for. 

“We estimate that it will cost $1.50-$2 (CHF1.30-CHF1.75) per farm to map the farm boundaries and there are about 340,000 coffee farmers in Tanzania,” Kissenge says. “It would be nice to get funding from the EU because good technology is not cheap.” 

The EU recently announced a substantial financial paymentExternal link of TZS97 billion (CHF30 million) to Tanzania for sectoral reforms, but preparing its coffee sector for EUDR compliance is not on the list. 

Advanced but not fully ready 

West African cocoa heavyweight Ghana has been putting together a cocoa traceability system since 2021. The database, labelled the Cocoa Management System (CMS), will not just contain the details of Ghana’s 1.5 million cocoa farmers but also be used to pay them for their cocoa beans and deliver a pension scheme.  

The CMS will also help Ghana comply with the new EU regulation on deforestation, an important goal given that 62% of the country’s cocoa output was exported to the EU in 2022. One of the major components of the CMS developed for EUDR purpose is the Ghana Cocoa Traceability System (GCTS) and cocoa-related deforestation risks assessment model that are meant to link data on forest cover with cocoa cultivation. 

“The development and operationalisation of these systems cost us over €50 million (CHF46.8 million),” says Michael Ekow Amoah, deputy director of research and development at the Ghana cocoa board (COCOBOD). “It’s a worthwhile investment but not fair. The EU should have contributed to the initial investment.” 

In 2019 Ghana invested in cocoa traceability by using funds from a $600 million loan signed in 2019 to finance cocoa productivity enhancement measures with a loan syndicate that includes the African Development Bank, as well as private investment banks including Credit Suisse (now part of UBS). The EU signed a €15 million agreement last OctoberExternal link with Ghana for a green transition and agribusiness programme which will focus on sustainable, climate-resilient agricultural production that could be used for EUDR compliance. 

Ghana is now well ahead of other African countries to comply with EU demands. According to a presentation at a technical workshop on the EUDR held in Accra on May 30, Ghana’s cocoa board has mapped a little over 1.2 million hectares of cocoa farms already out of a total of 1.3 million and registered close to 793,000 cocoa farmers out of 1.5 million.  

“It’s worthwhile in the sense that it will enable Ghana to provide the relevant evidence to meet the EUDR requirements and increase our market share of the EU market,” says Amoah. 

Ghana and Tanzania are feeling the pain of complying with the EUDR right now, but registering farmers and mapping farms will have benefits that go beyond tackling deforestation. 

“To implement climate-smart agriculture, tackle child labour or improve agricultural practices, you need data. Currently, the focus is on preventing deforestation, but the fact is you need transparency to modernise the sector,” says Christian Robin, CEO of the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa (SWISSCO). 

Switzerland is offering some financial support through the Green Commodities Programme developed in collaboration with the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2015. The programme originally focused on sustainable production of agricultural commodities in Peru (cocoa and coffee) and Indonesia (palm oil). The third phase (2023-2026) has set aside CHF11 million (CHF5 million from SECO) for five projects relevant to the EUDR: cocoa in Ghana, livestock and soy in Brazil’s Tocantins state, palm oil in Indonesia and in Malaysia’s Sabah state, and coffee and cocoa in Peru. 

More time to prepare 

In a surprise move, the European Commission announced on October 1 a proposal to delay the implementation of the deforestation regulation by one year, i.e. December 30, 2025, instead of December 30, 2024. The proposal will have to be approved by the European parliament with the vote most likely to take place in November or December. 

Countries and trading associations affected by the EUDR had been asking for more time to prepare. In September, cocoa-producing countries signed a joint declaration in Ivory Coast’s largest city Abidjan (headquarters of the International Cocoa Organization ICCO) asking for a two-year delay in the implementation of the EUDR. A few weeks earlier the European Cocoa Association had written to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also asking for a postponement. 

“It’s OK if they ask for more time and money from the EU. It’s also good to be pragmatic and flexible,” Robin says. 

Ghana could use a 12-month extension. Its Cocoa Management System is currently not fully developed with two out of the eight components still not ready for implementation.  

“It will enable Ghana to procure all the requisite logistics required to operationalise the national systems put in place to meet the requirements of the EUDR. It will also enable Ghana to perfect the system,” Amoah says.  

The delay would also provide a cushion for Tanzania’s coffee board. Registration of coffee farmers has only just started in the Kagare region that accounts for 30-40% of all coffee output. It will then be rolled across the remaining 16 coffee-growing regions of the country. This is expected to take at least until January 2025 to complete.  

“The postponement will be a big relief,” Kissenge says. “It will allow us more time to prepare and source the right mapping technology instead of rushing.” 

Edited by Virginie Mangin/ts