Uganda’s coffee industry, the country’s second-largest export earner, is facing a new challenge: complying with strict European Union deforestation regulations.

With coffee exports contributing up to 20% of Uganda’s foreign revenue, stakeholders warn that failure to meet these new standards could put the country’s coffee access to the EU market at serious risk.

Under the new EU Deforestation Regulation, which came into effect on December 30th, coffee exports to Europe must be traceable down to the exact farm plot and that land must not have been deforested after December 2020.

Mr. Keimusya Rauben, Assistant Commissioner for Coffee Production at the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, says the regulation targets seven major commodities, but coffee is by far the most significant for Uganda.

He adds that farmers whose’ land needs to be marked and have their coffee compliant must have not been planted on deforested land.

However, Uganda faces a steep compliance hill to climb. According to Mr. Jonathan Lubega, a policy analyst at SEATINI Uganda, about 80% of land in the country remains undocumented or untitled, making it difficult to meet the EU’s land legality and traceability requirements.

Stakeholders warn that unless the country rapidly improves land documentation and farm traceability systems, Uganda risks losing its vital coffee export foothold in the European Union.

Adding to the pressure, Uganda has been classified as a “standard risk” country under the EUDR, meaning it must provide stronger evidence of compliance than low-risk nations.