Colombia’s coffee industry well placed but wary as EU deforestation rule looms

CIÉNAGA, Colombia — A handful of men swarm around a coffee collection center in the city of Ciénaga, shouldering burlap sacks of coffee as they move in and out of the mill. Ciénaga is a port town in the foothills of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the world’s highest coastal mountain range, and is known locally as the coffee capital of the Sierra Nevada region.

“We hope EUDR will be to our benefit,” says Silver Polo Palomino, a coffee grower and representative of the Asociación de Agricultores Orgánicos de La Secreta (AGROSEC), a local organic coffee growers’ association in Ciénaga, speaking over the roar of the mill. Polo is one of many producers in Colombia who say they’re uncertain — and increasingly nervous — about what the implementation of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) will mean for their livelihoods.

The regulation, set to go into force at the end of this year, will ban the import into the EU market of seven key commodities linked to deforestation. Coffee is among them. But Colombia, the world’s No. 3 coffee producer, is well prepared for the EUDR and better positioned than coffee exporters in many parts of Africa and Asia, several experts told Mongabay. Despite a fragmented sector dominated by small-scale farmers, Colombia’s coffee industry is highly organized, largely through the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia (FNC), which represents more than 500,000 coffee-growing families. The FNC has developed a centralized georeferenced database, the Coffee Information System (SICA), designed to help growers and exporters demonstrate compliance with the EUDR.

Still, challenges remain. These include compliance with national laws, especially given Colombia’s largely informal labor market, as well as limited awareness of the upcoming regulation among many small-scale farmers. Market actors interviewed by Mongabay say that while the EUDR addresses a real need for environmental protection and stronger traceability in global coffee supply chains, it could also lead to unintended consequences, particularly related to recent delays in enforcing the EUDR and difficulty in meeting some of the requirements.

The EUDR was adopted by the European Union in 2023 and applies to coffee, cocoa, cattle, soy, palm oil, rubber and wood. To be allowed into the EU market, these products must be “deforestation-free,” produced in compliance with national laws in the country of origin, and covered by a due diligence statement. That statement must include geolocation data for all plots of land where the commodities were produced; a risk assessment evaluating whether the products are linked to deforestation or forest degradation after Dec. 31, 2020, or violations of local law; and mitigation measures where risks are identified.

The general response in Colombia to the EUDR was “confrontational” at first, with many seeing it as a nontariff barrier to trade, says Alberto Menghini, head of cooperation for the EU in Colombia. He says the attitude toward the regulation started changing in late 2023, when the EU adopted a more hands-on approach to compliance and the Colombian coffee industry realized it was well-positioned to comply, especially given the high level of traceability of Colombian coffee through the SICA system. Menghini says the EUDR allows the data in SICA to be put to good use.

“The regulation is about deforestation, legality and due diligence” in supply chains, says Juan Esteban Orduz, chair of the World Coffee Producers Forum and former president of the FNC. Among these pillars, legality — compliance with environmental, labor and civil legislation — poses the greatest challenge for Colombia’s coffee sector, and indeed for those of many other producer countries, he says.

“Colombia, like many other countries, has a certain level of informality, especially in rural areas,” says Marcela Gaviria Botero, director of alliances and projects at the FNC. “Some of the laws aim at or reflect the ambition of having a situation that does not always apply to our rural life.”

She notes that more than 76% of Colombian coffee farmers operate within family-based economies, while the rest mainly rely on seasonal labor, particularly during harvest periods, which often doesn’t meet all national labor requirements.

“The EU has to act realistically. Although desirable, you cannot expect a nomadic coffee picker in a coffee-producing country to have the same working conditions as a European farmworker,” Orduz tells Mongabay in a video call. Unclear or undefined land tenure presents another major legal challenge for the sector. 

“The no-deforestation requirement is the easy part,” Orduz adds, referring to the rule that coffee must not come from land deforested after December 2020. “The only thing the coffee grower has to do is to not deforest. The challenge is to show that they comply,” he says.

Gaviria Botero says a team of more than 1,000 agronomists and technicians working for the FNC has been traveling across the country, reminding growers about the prohibition on deforestation and collecting written consent to share data, allowing registered exporters to access farm coordinates and SICA records to demonstrate deforestation-free status to EU buyers.

According to Gaviria Botero, in Colombia coffee isn’t a major driver of deforestation. The main culprits are extensive cattle ranching, illegal coca cultivation, illegal mining, illegal and informal roads, wildfires, land grabbing, and illegal logging.

Colombia a step ahead 

Colombia is the world’s third-largest coffee producer, with more than 800,000 hectares (2 million acres) under cultivation across 23 of the country’s 32 departments. The industry employs about 2.5 million people, and roughly 70% of the country’s coffee is produced by smallholders.

“Coffee is one of the most important raw materials that Colombia has,” says Fabio Andrés García Bonilla, founder of Casa de Paz Shinawindua, an Indigenous-led organization based in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta that works with communities to promote peacebuilding, territorial sovereignty, cultural protection and sustainable livelihoods.

Experts consulted by Mongabay agree that the EUDR is likely to reshape competition among coffee-producing countries. When it comes to preparedness to comply with the regulation, “Colombia is definitely a bit ahead,” says Frédéric Baron, a land-use governance expert at the European Forest Institute.

He notes that Colombia and Brazil benefit from extensive satellite data, deforestation maps, and relatively strong coordination between authorities and market actors. “It makes Colombia a very good candidate [for exporting coffee to the EU]. Companies have a lot of free information for doing their due diligence.”

“Colombia is a case study for coffee — we’re very well organized,” says Camila Cortes Severino, director of sustainability at Racafé, one of Colombia’s largest green coffee exporters. Most producers already have mapped polygons for their coffee plots, she says, and “geolocation is largely solved.”

“Colombia has managed to understand, with our help, that EUDR is not a threat, it’s an opportunity to make visible the efforts of coffee and other producers that adopt sustainability practices,” Menghini says on a phone call. “The exporters that are looking for projection in the world market understand perfectly that traceability is a necessity” regardless of the EUDR, Menghini says.

Baron says that while Colombia is relatively well-prepared for the EUDR, other producer countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, may struggle to continue exporting coffee to the EU after the EUDR takes effect.

Smallholders might dominate but, “Colombia has a very strong institutional capacity — it’s the most structured country,” Orduz says. The FNC operates in more than 600 of Colombia’s 1,103 municipalities and maintains detailed records on 1.8 millioncoffee lots. The federation’s SICA tool provides verified exporters with geolocation data and supports traceability across supply chains. “It is the most sophisticated system,” Orduz says.

“Over several decades, we have gathered more information than what EUDR requires from us through SICA, which was created in the early 1990s and is now a digitalized information system in the process of becoming more and more agile and dynamic through artificial intelligence. SICA goes way beyond EUDR compliance and we use it for rural development and to respond to the needs of protecting the environment and people’s individual and collective rights, while also promoting the quality of our coffee,” Gaviria Botero explains.

By contrast, in other coffee-producing countries in Africa and Latin America, preparation for the EUDR has been far more challenging, Orduz says.

A revolutionary regulation

“It’s the first time we see market regulation that is so disruptive on commodities,” Baron says. He notes that many traders have historically purchased coffee as a generic commodity with limited due diligence. The EUDR reverses that model, requiring buyers to assess the entirety of their supply chains.

“It’s very disruptive, but in a good way,” Baron says. Menghini says the EUDR reinforces the case for using data analysis in policymaking.

“We’re seeing a variety of systems being developed by tech companies, traditional certification organizations, trade associations, traders, roasters, and other actors to store and validate data,” says Kevin Lardner, senior relationship manager for Latin America and the coffee trade at the Rainforest Alliance. He notes that the Rainforest Alliance’s certification program now includes a set of tools designed to support EUDR requirements, including automated deforestation risk maps.

“We see the regulation as a key tool to prevent deforestation-linked products from entering the European market. We’ve supported it from the start,” Lardner says. “The regulation is reinforcing the basic building blocks of sustainable agriculture, including improved traceability and land-use transparency.”

Critics have said the EUDR is a neocolonial imposition from Europe on developing countries. Menghini disagrees: “It’s a matter of consistency.” He says it wouldn’t be consistent for the EU to invest heavily in environmental protection within the union while not caring about the environmental conditions associated with imported goods.

“If I didn’t care what happens there [in producing countries], that would be real neocolonialism,” Menghini says. Instead, he says, the EU is “projecting what we’re trying to do internally, externally. We’re treating partner countries as equals.”

Far from Sierra Nevada’s coffee growers

On a remote hilltop in Sierra Nevada, Rosa Elena Marroquín Useche, a coffee grower and single mother of four who lost her husband during Colombia’s armed conflict, knows little about the EUDR. She says she’s unsure where her coffee goes after harvest, though she believes some of it may be exported to Europe. Still, she supports the idea of strengthening environmental protections in the coffee sector.

“We don’t want contamination, we don’t want deforestation here,” she says.

When Mongabay visits, Marroquín’s arabica coffee fields are in the midst of harvest, keeping her children busy; all of them help support the family’s coffee business.

“We don’t have deforestation, everything is grown under the shade of the trees here,” says her son, Luis Armando Gómez Marroquín, pointing to the coffee plants.

In the Sierra Nevada, coffee is typically grown under shade because of the region’s intense sun. Maintaining trees as part of coffee agroforestry systems helps prevent soil erosion, mitigates the impact of extreme weather, absorbs carbon dioxide, and creates natural wildlife corridors.

Polo, the organic coffee grower in Ciénaga, says he initially felt confident that he and other members of his association would be able to comply with the EUDR. He recalls thinking early on: “This won’t affect us, because we are producing organic. Rather, it will benefit us.”

After learning more about the EUDR’s documentation requirements, however, his view shifted. “Now I see that it won’t [benefit us].” Polo describes the EU market as particularly difficult to compete in, but says it remains the most attractive destination. “Of course, we would prefer exporting to the EU — they pay better prices.”

At the same time, he highlights positive aspects of the regulation. Satellite monitoring and geolocation are tools that organic producers like him have long been working with. “It guarantees product traceability for the client … I think it’s great,” he says. “What we are doing now as organic producers, everyone will soon be doing.”

In another part of the Sierra Nevada, deep inside Tayrona National Park, Indigenous coffee producers also know little about the EUDR. Juan Nieves Dingula, a Kogui Indigenous leader, says he produces some of the region’s best coffee, but struggles to access international markets.

The community cultivates coffee on a 1-hectare (2.5-acre) plot using sustainable practices. Still, Dingula says navigating the bureaucracy required to export coffee to markets like the EU is extremely difficult for small Indigenous producers.

“The Indigenous communities do not have the contacts and communication channels to be able to have traceability” and export to the EU, says García Bonilla, the Indigenous empowerment campaigner, who has supported Nieves and other Indigenous leaders with improving their livelihoods.

“This is a sacred space. The real owner is the earth and the sun,” Dingula says as Indigenous children run around him playing. He says coffee plants, like all elements of nature, have spirituality and must be protected.

For small-scale producers in the Sierra Nevada, the EUDR provides an opportunity to leverage their strengths, Menghini says. He adds that small-scale specialty coffee farmers are hardly ever competitive in terms of yield per hectare, but when they can demonstrate traceability and their special story, “it is probably their best bet at being competitive,” he says.

Small- versus large-scale coffee growers  

Gaviria Botero from the FNC says responsibility for demonstrating EUDR compliance lies with the exporters, not the coffee growers. Small-scale growers should not be burdened with EUDR bureaucracy, as it can become “a distraction for them” and their important work at the farm, according to Nicolás A. Tamari, president of the Swiss Coffee Trade Association and CEO of Sucafina, one of the world’s leading coffee companies.

“In Colombia, small producers are not excluded from the market,” says Orduz, the World Coffee Producers Forum chair.

Cortes Severino, from Colombian exporter Racafé, says the EUDR must be addressed at the national level, with close coordination between government and the private sector — something Colombia already has in place.

Greater transparency in supply chains could benefit small-scale producers who are often disadvantaged by complex supply chains, says Baron from the European Forest Institute. According to Polo, intermediaries often refuse to share information to avoid direct trade relationships.

“Intermediaries take about 60% of the profits from our coffee. We earn the least,” Polo says.

Baron adds that “Some intermediaries will disappear, especially the ones who do not want to adapt.”

Still, most experts agree that large companies are better positioned to comply with the EUDR. Tamari says smaller actors often delay investments in compliance because of limited resources.

“Collecting and managing data requires additional technical capacity and drives up costs for farmers. There is “a risk that companies may favor better-resourced farms or countries that are better able to demonstrate compliance,” says Lardner.

New market dynamics 

EU importers are responsible for due diligence under the EUDR, but exporters, traders and roasters are also involved. According to Tamari, clients ultimately pay for compliance data, while coffee farmers don’t face direct EUDR-related costs.

Colombian coffee exporters were already working on traceability in their supply chains, “because the market was already demanding it,” Cortes Severino says, adding that the EUDR has accelerated those efforts.

Her export company, Racafé, works with the FNC, using SICA to ensure geospatial information for all of their producers. “[The EUDR] will be good for the sector, because we’re getting to know our supply chains better and improve them,” she says, adding that sustainable practices — such as protecting water sources, maintaining healthy coffee plants, and minimizing climate risks by protecting forests — are critical to the long-term performance of Colombia’s coffee sector.

Baron says companies now face a choice: formalize supply chains to comply with the EUDR, or redirect exports to markets with weaker requirements, such as parts of Asia or the U.S. Some informal actors, he says, may disappear altogether.

Specialty coffee producers are likely to benefit, Baron adds, because they already operate with more detailed sourcing systems than commodity traders. 

Cortes Severino and other industry specialists say they expect the EUDR to accelerate demand for certified coffee. “There will be a lot of certified coffee moving into the EU,” she says.

Orduz, who also sits on the board of the Rainforest Alliance, says certified products already meet EUDR requirements, though compliance must still be demonstrated.

Cortes Severino agrees, saying “Certification alone is not sufficient. The importer must carry out the due diligence.” 

Unintended consequences

Despite its environmental ambitions, Tamari from the Swiss Coffee Trade Association argues that the EUDR is poorly designed and implemented. “Deforestation-free coffee should be the norm,” he says, but calls the regulation “too theoretical” and a “regulatory fiasco.”

He points to technical shortcomings, delayed implementation, and the risk that deforestation-linked coffee will simply be diverted to other markets. “The EU has regulated first and then tried to figure out how it works,” he says, arguing that closer collaboration with market actors would have produced a more practical regulatory framework. 

The regulation has introduced uncertainty — and a steep learning curve — across the coffee sector, Cortes Severino says. “It’s challenging. We are all learning how this will work,” she says, citing open questions around EU platforms, mapping standards and definitions of legality.

“Due diligence is a continuous process of improvement, it is not black and white,” Baron says. He adds that unlike certifications, the due diligence process for the EUDR “is about showing that you did your best or that you are making improvements.” 

What the delay means

In December 2024, the EUDR’s implementation was delayed by one year, to Dec. 30, 2025. Less than a fortnight before it was due to go into force, a second delay was approved by the European Parliament, pushing enforcement to Dec. 30, 2026, for large operators, and June 30, 2027, for micro and small operators.

“The Europeans are the slow ones when it comes to adopting EUDR, and there will be a formal review of how EUDR is working in April 2026 as part of the amended regulatory process,” Orduz says, noting that customs authorities lack sufficient knowledge, staff and funding to enforce the regulation, which has contributed to the repeated delays.

In October 2025, Nestlé and other companies shared an open letter with the European Commission, urging them not to delay the regulation further. The Rainforest Alliance tells Mongabay that “the EU’s decision to further delay and change the legislation risks undermining trust and preparedness across supply chains, and seriously harms credibility.”

“Don’t get me wrong: we don’t want to displace responsibility,” says the FNC’s says Gaviria Botero. “Everybody in the value chain has a role to play, and as producers, we play ours.”

She says the EUDR should be enforced with an initial grace period without sanctions.

Tamari says the EU and EUDR “lost credibility” by postponing the regulation. He notes that companies have invested a lot of resources on tools to comply with the EUDR and now feel such investments have been “a waste of time, energy and money.” He adds that there’s uncertainty about whether the regulation will even be implemented in the end.

It’s hard to assess how ready industry players are for EUDR implementation, Baron says.

“Companies play the game of saying they’re ready because they cannot say they are not,” he says. He adds he understands some companies’ frustration with the delay. “They invested to become more competitive, and at the very last moment the EU changed the timeline, giving other companies more time to catch up and level competitiveness.”

Cortes Severino and others say EUDR implementation is likely to be pushed further. “If it is delayed one more year, we will continue with the same doubts,” she tells Mongabay. Some even speculate the regulation is likely to be shelved indefinitely.

The EU’s Menghini rejects that notion. “I’m absolutely sure the investments made in traceability will not be wasted. I don’t think Europe and the world will backtrack,” he says. “The question mark is really the speed.”

He points to the overriding reason for implementing the EUDR in the first place: “We’re addressing deforestation, it’s morally not acceptable.”

Banner image: Juan Nieves Dingula (left), a Kogui Indigenous leader, produces coffee in Tayrona National Park. Image by Mie Hoejris Dahl.

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