Coffee companies launch satellite initiative to track deforestation linked to cultivation

KAMPALA, April 25, 2026 — Several coffee companies and traders, including JDE Peet’s, Tchibo and commodities giant Louis Dreyfus Company, have joined forces to launch a global initiative aimed at tracking deforestation linked to coffee farming.

The initiative, known as the Coffee Canopy Partnership, will use satellite imagery supplied by Airbus alongside advanced artificial intelligence models to map coffee farms and detect nearby forest loss. Its primary objective is to accurately identify affected landscapes and work with governments and local communities to restore degraded forests and prevent further deforestation.

The partnership will initially focus on East Africa — including Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda — with plans to expand to all coffee-growing regions worldwide by 2027.

The move comes ahead of the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation, which will take effect on 30 December for large companies and by 30 June 2027 for smaller enterprises. The regulation will prohibit coffee produced on land classified as forest after December 2020 from entering EU markets.

JDE Peet’s has warned that the rules could marginalise millions of smallholder farmers who practise sustainable agriculture but risk exclusion due to inaccurate land classifications that may mislabel agroforestry or shade-grown coffee systems as forest.

The initiative is expected to address longstanding gaps in mapping accuracy that have led to the misclassification of coffee farms as natural forest. It will also incorporate input from farmers, governments and industry stakeholders, ensuring a more inclusive and effective approach to environmental sustainability in coffee production.

https://thecooperator.news/eu-endorses-another-one-year-delay-for-eudr-implementation/

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