The Kenyan government has embarked on a mission to map all coffee farming parcels of land in the country to ensure it adheres to the European Union Deforestation Regulations (EUDR).
The regulations apply to all commodities viewed by the European Union (EU) as linked to deforestation, including coffee, cocoa, soy, beef, palm oil, rubber, and wood, and will be enforced as of 30 December 2025.
The regulations were initially planned for 30 December 2024, but was postponed by a year as part of a “phasing-in period”.
The application means EU importers will need to ensure the coffee it has imported has not been subject to deforestation or forest degradation as of 31 December 2020.
According to the Kenyan Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA), Kenya has exported 122,699 metric tonnes of clean coffee to the EU, which accounts for 55 per cent of all exports in that period.
Belgium, Germany, Finland, and Sweden have been cited as the EU’s biggest importers of Kenyan coffee.
“To ensure full implementation of the regulation, the Government through the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development has embarked on a process to map all the parcels of land under coffee farming in the country,” a statement from the AFA reads.
“Currently, approximately 30 per cent of the national coffee area in 16 counties out of 33 has been geo-mapped using satellite imagery.
“This represents 32,688 hectares of coffee farms out of the total coffee area of 109,384 hectares country wide.”
The AFA says the process of geo-mapping Kenya’s coffee farms is expected to take approximately two months.
“Several teams under the EUDR Data Committee … will be mapping out the remaining part under coffee production countrywide. The exercise is expected to be completed in due time to meet the deadlines set by the EUDR.”
Smallholder farms contribute roughly 70 per cent of Kenya’s coffee production according to the AFA, which occurs in 33 counties across the East African nation.
The regulations will be enforced on large businesses as of 30 December 2025, however will only be enforced on small and micro enterprises as of 30 June 2026.
