African smallholder farmers, agro-dealers, and exporters are increasingly facing compliance pressure as deadline to implement the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) nears. The EUDR introduces strict export rules to importers of agricultural commodities to the EU market. It applies to products such as cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy, wood, and many of their derivatives. Under the EUDR, companies must perform due diligence to trace products to their place of production and demonstrate that they are deforestation-free i.e., the products must not be sourced from areas that were deforested after December 31, 2020. With the new rules, countries are classified according to what EU authorities consider low risk, high risk, and standard risk. Only a few countries in Africa including Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi, South Sudan, Egypt, and South Africa are considered to present a low risk of producing relevant commodities that are not deforestation-free, meaning operators sourcing from them may apply simplified due diligence under the EUDR. For instance, companies sourcing products like coffee from Rwanda must collect key information on the products such as what those products are, where they were produced, their geolocation data, and suppler details, among others. Countries such as Uganda, Tanzania, DR Congo, Ethiopia, and the rest of the African countries are considered to present standard risk, which implies that these countries face full EUDR due diligence requirements but not the highest-risk checks. ALSO READ: Coffee sector tightens land monitoring to meet new EU deforestation rules Implementation kicks off According to the EU authorities, the implementation of the EUDR is expected to start on December 30, 2025 for large and medium enterprises, and June 30, 2026 for micro and small enterprises. According to Vahini Naidu, Programme Coordinator of the Trade for Development Programme (TDP) of the South Centre, these rules will determine whether African smallholder farmers will remain competitive over the next 12 to 24 months. “I think this is a very important defining period in terms of how African exporters are preparing themselves on the ground to adapt to what is coming,” she said at a recent workshop on Africa-EU agriculture trade relationship. Various studies indicate that the burden will be unevenly distributed. The more consequential impact lies in compliance costs, which are expected to consume a disproportionately large share of smallholder farmers’ annual income. “Some studies estimate that up to 75% of annual income could go towards compliance alone. At the same time, larger exporters are absorbing a much smaller share of this cost. This is a fundamental structural barrier,” Naidu said. In addition to this, she added, awareness levels are very low with industry surveys tracking awareness across regions in Africa show worrying results. “Some surveys conducted this year indicate that 85% of East African agribusinesses have no substantive knowledge of what is coming.” ALSO READ: Rwandan coffee exporters in race to meet new EU market rule Compliance requirements, costs Naidu observed that the EU deforestation regulation introduces three tiers of compliance, which revolve around geolocation and satellite verification, due diligence, documentation, and audits, as well as digital traceability systems. “When these costs are combined, they are massive relative to smallholder incomes. Total annual compliance costs per smallholder range from €740 to nearly €2,000, while average smallholder incomes in the region range from €1,000 to €3,000 per year.” This, she added, will create significant capital and digital asymmetries, especially given the limited capacity of most smallholders. Wellars Karangwa, manager of Muhondo Coffee Company, which works with 1,800 smallholder farmers, said compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation has proven both costly and operationally demanding. The company, which exports green Arabica coffee to Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy, was required to map all its supplying farmers and collect GPS coordinates covering approximately 30,000 coffee trees. “To comply, we had to hire additional workers to gather the data, which cost us at least Rwf2 million,” Karangwa said. “We also had to adjust our certification system. That meant renewing certificates before their expiry, at an additional cost of about $7,000, or roughly Rwf10 million.” Beyond mapping and certification, Karangwa said the company has incurred further compliance costs linked to documentation requirements imposed by EU buyers. “Buyers now require extensive documentation to demonstrate sustainable farming practices,” he said. “We must provide evidence that our farms are not affected by soil erosion, that we have pest management systems in place, and that environmental and sustainability standards are integrated into our production processes.” Looking across Africa, many countries have taken a state-led model in which governments are driving the process of compliance. This is the case for Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, and Kenya, among others. In Rwanda, the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB) said recently that it had rolled out a digital system that tracks coffee from farm to export. The tool collects data on production, inputs, and farm management practices. A nationwide coffee census is also underway to gather geospatial data and socioeconomic profiles of farmers. “This will give us complete traceability,” NAEB’s chief executive Claude Bizimana told a press conference recently, adding that a reliable traceability framework that was developed by the government will ensure that farmers expand their farmland only to areas where forests have not been cleared. In Ghana, the government has also developed a traceability model in which more than 40,000 farms have been GPS-mapped, and over 20,000 farmers have been registeredand linked to payment systems. EU rules seen as unfair Still, many African experts have termed the EU rules as discriminatory, saying the EU did not consult Africa in its process to introduce the new rules, despite the continent being EU’s largest trading partner for decades. For Jane Nalunga, Executive Director of the Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI), a pro-trade advocacy organisation, the new European directives are issues that Africa should have started discussing long time ago “What we need to discuss is how the demands are being imposed,” she said, highlighting that the continent must speak with one voice if it were to have a stronger leverage over the EU. “We need to speak as one voice because speaking individually doesn’t give us leverage to negotiate a more equitable trade relationship with the EU,” she added, indicating that the current trade relationship is not equitable Currently, Africa’s trade is still extra‑continental. Intra‑African trade hovers around 15–16 per cent, which is far below the EU (70 per cent) and Asia (60 per cent), according to data from the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Data shows that the structure of Africa-EU trade remains unbalanced. EU currently absorbs about 34 per cent of African exports. At the same time, Africa receives around 68 per cent of its manufactured goods and machinery from the EU. Last month, the European Parliament on Wednesday voted in favour of delaying the implementation of the European Union's deforestation law by one year. This would give companies an additional year to comply with new EU rules to prevent deforestation. However, no final decision has been made on whether to extend the deadline.
