Why coffee compliance is harder than it looks
European importers cannot place your coffee on the EU market without a valid EUDR Information System reference number from you. If you cannot produce one, they will find a supplier who can — and they will not wait.
EUDR requires a GeoJSON polygon for any plot ≥4 ha. A GPS waypoint in the middle of a farm is not sufficient. Most LATAM coffee exporters have point coordinates at best — we convert them or reconstruct polygons via satellite.
A cooperative with 4,000 member farmers needs 4,000 verified plot locations. Collecting and validating that dataset is a data operation — it requires a template, field coordination, and satellite cross-checking. This is exactly what we do.
EUDR compliance is not at the mill level — it is at the production plot level. If your beneficio húmedo receives coffee from 200 farms, every one of those farms must be individually geolocated and verified. Blending creates traceability gaps that require mapping back up the chain to each farm.
Technical requirements for coffee
Geolocation — two rules
Cutoff date: 31 December 2020
Coffee must have been produced on land that was not deforested after 31 December 2020. We verify every plot against Sentinel-2 imagery and Global Forest Watch tree cover loss data from that date forward. A plot that shows forest cover change after the cutoff requires documented mitigation before a DDS can be filed.
Traceability at production plot — not at export level
Compliance is not certified at the processing mill or export warehouse. It is verified at the production plot where the coffee was grown. The DDS must list every production plot that contributed to the shipment — with coordinates, supplier name, and deforestation evidence for each.
HS codes for coffee under EUDR
Country-by-country
Latin America and East Africa — both corridors covered.
Federación Nacional de Cafeteros supply chains involve millions of smallholder plots. Traceability gaps appear at wet-processing mills (beneficios húmedos) where lots from multiple farms are blended. Individual GPS coordinates required per farm — not per mill.
Main challenge: Smallholder lot mixing at wet mills
Commercial estates in Minas Gerais and São Paulo are generally polygon-ready. Cerrado-origin coffee (Mato Grosso, Bahia) may overlap with high-risk deforestation zones requiring enhanced verification against the 31 Dec 2020 baseline.
Main challenge: Cerrado biome deforestation risk zones
High proportion of indigenous-community-owned land in Amazonian growing regions (Junín, San Martín, Cusco). Land tenure documentation is a common compliance gap. Cooperative-level collection means plot-level traceability is rarely in place at the point of export.
Main challenge: Indigenous land tenure documentation
Smallholder-dominant structure (average farm < 2 ha). Most plots qualify for single-point geolocation rather than polygons. The challenge is collecting GPS data from farmers who have never been formally mapped.
Main challenge: No existing GPS data at farm level
Smaller export volumes but growing specialty-coffee segment. Plots concentrated in Pichincha and Loja. Traceability chain from farm to exporter is relatively short — compliance is achievable quickly once geolocation is collected.
Main challenge: Short supply chain — fast to close gaps
ICAFE (Instituto del Café de Costa Rica) maintains farm registries that can be used as a starting point. Most plots are fully documented. Main EUDR task is formatting existing data into the EU Information System schema and adding Article 10 risk assessment.
Main challenge: Data formatting and schema compliance
Birthplace of Arabica coffee, with complex smallholder supply chains across Yirgacheffe, Sidama, and Guji zones. Forest-grown and garden coffee often originates inside or near forest boundaries — deforestation baseline verification requires careful Sentinel-2 analysis against the 31 Dec 2020 cutoff.
Main challenge: Forest-proximate plots require enhanced satellite verification
Cooperative-dominated supply chain (over 700 registered factories). Traceability from individual smallholder to cooperative is generally documented, but plot-level GPS data is rarely in machine-readable format. The Central and Nyeri regions have well-established farm registries — a strong starting point for EUDR mapping.
Main challenge: Plot GPS data exists on paper — needs digitisation
Coffee grown primarily in Kilimanjaro, Mbeya, and Njombe regions. Dexffo has active field presence in the Njombe Region — deforestation baseline methodology applied directly to EUDR risk assessment for Tanzanian coffee plots.
Main challenge: Remote growing areas with limited digital mapping infrastructure
What you receive
Typical scope — coffee
Risk Score
3 days
Operator/trader classification, country risk tier, readiness scorecard.
Due Diligence Statement
3–6 weeks
Full compliance package — farm mapping through EUDR Information System filing.
Monitoring
Quarterly
Annual DDS renewals and deforestation alerts per growing season.
Scoped proposal — typically in 48h
Other EUDR commodities
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Free compliance check — commodity classification, country risk tier, traceability readiness. No account required.
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