Coffee Growers Look to Postpone EU Deforestation Requirement

The world’s top coffee body is set to request that the European Union postpone a requirement that imported beans come from areas not linked with deforestation, the group’s head said on Wednesday 18 September. The rule, set to take effect at the end of the year, would ban sales of coffee – as well as cocoa, soy, palm oil, wood, rubber and cattle – if companies are unable to prove the product comes from an area where forests haven’t been cut down in recent years. “We can’t meet that date, it is not possible,” said Vanusia Nogueira, director of the International Coffee Organization (ICO), in an interview. The ICO, a United Nations-linked intergovernmental group, represents more than 90% of coffee production and more than 60% of consumption worldwide. Top coffee producers such as Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia are member countries. “It’s a very ambitious deadline,” Nogueira said. “We believe that by working with (EU leaders), they might be more open to postponing that date.”

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