Nogueira hopes the EU might be ‘more open’ to delaying implementation of the regulations | Photo credit: Shelby Murphy Figueroa

The International Coffee Organization (ICO) had added has added pressure on the EU to delay Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which is due to come into force on 30 December 2024. 
 

EUDR will require businesses importing products to the EU considered ‘main drivers for deforestation’ – including coffee, cocoa, palm oil, paper and wood – to produce a due diligence statement that imports have not contributed to forest degradation anywhere in the world after 31 December 2020.  

“We can’t meet that date, it is not possible,” ICO Executive Director Vanusia Nogueira told a coffee summit hosted by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Honduras.
 

Nogueira said she hopes that by working with EU leaders, they might be ‘more open’ to delaying implementation of the regulations – but she did not say the length of delay likely to be needed for greater compliance. 
 

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The ICO, whose members represent 98% of all coffee producing nations and 67% of coffee consuming markets, is the latest high-profile coffee body to seek a delay to EUDR.  
 

In February 2024, The European Coffee Federation (ECF), which counts prominent European coffee companies illycaffè, JDE Peet’s, Lavazza, Paulig and Nestlé among its members, said the timing of EUDR’s application would cause significant disruption to the global coffee supply chain and limit access to the EU market for coffee producing nations in Africa and Asia. 

In June 2024, the non-profit International Coffee Partners (ICP) warned that coffee farmers face being excluded from the EU market because they lack access to data proving deforestation is not occurring on their land.

The seven-strong coalition of Portugal’s Delta Cafès, Sweden’s Löfbergs, Croatia’s Franck, Norway’s Joh. Johannson, Italy’s Lavazza and Germany’s Neumann Gruppe and Tchibo, also said that the verification process must be simple enough and accessible for smallholder coffee farmers to comply with or they will likely shift their sales to non-EU countries. 

The EU maintains that EUDR is an important step in promoting the consumption of ‘deforestation-free’ products and reducing the EU’s impact on forest degradation globally. It expects the regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower biodiversity loss. 

The EU has granted ‘micro or small businesses’ an extension until 30 June 2025 to comply with EUDR. The union defines a micro business as an enterprise with fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover below €2m ($2.2m). A small enterprise is defined as having fewer than 50 employees and an annual turnover below €10m ($11.1m).