Lavazza’s chairman, Giuseppe Lavazza speaks out his worry on the EU new rulings to regulate coffee imports
July 20 - 2024
Coffee Geography Magazine
Guiseppe Lavazza, chairman for Lavazza Group expresses his skepticism on how to implement the new European rulings to control deforestation in coffee producing regions.
The EU's recently implemented deforestation rules could mean that thousands of farmers' coffee bean exports to the EU could soon be rejected, due to them having been produced on land that was recently deforested.
Although the EU's deforestation rules are seen to have good intentions, aimed at preserving forest quality and reducing the impact of deforestation on local communities, several industry leaders fear that they may have been badly drafted and almost impossible to implement in some cases.
Under the new rules, coffee manufacturers across the world will have to use satellite coordinates to digitally map how big their farm is and clearly highlight its boundaries, in order to check whether any of the land has recently been deforested.
However, for several farmers in key coffee-producing and developing nations, such as Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and Colombia, this would be close to impossible, due to the funds and technical expertise required to satellite mapping.
In a conversation with journalists during the Wimbledon tennis tournament and reported in the Telegraph, Lavazza said the upshot for business would be "terrible".
The coffee boss added: "This is introducing a big limitation, a very strong distortion of the market.
"For all of the European roasters, this is very challenging. Think about farmers in Central America, I think very few of them are ready to be compliant with the regulation."
Farm borders in many of the countries are blurred and have been for generations, resulting in farmers not knowing the full extent of their farms exactly, and thus, unable to provide the information needed for satellite mapping.
The EU's new regulations are also likely to create additional regulatory burden on coffee importers in the bloc, who will now have to conduct extensive checks on their export partners, such as independent audits and risk assessments.
This is likely to add to costs and time involved, which could also mean a lot of EU coffee roasters contemplating leaving the bloc and setting up facilities elsewhere, such as China or the US, constraining coffee supplies even more.
Coffee prices have also been rising recently due to natural factors, such as droughts, as well as geopolitical factors such as the Red Sea crisis adding considerably to shipping times and supply chain backlogs.
Under the regulation, any operator or trader who places its coffee beans on the EU market, or exports from it, must be able to prove that the products do not originate from recently deforested land or have contributed to forest degradation.
These rules also aim to decrease the EU's carbon emissions triggered by the bloc's production and consumption of these commodities.
The European Commission insists the changes will not pose too much of a regulatory or cost burden to farmers.