Kenya’s coffee industry is facing a looming challenge as the deadline for compliance with the European Union’s Deforestation-Free Products Regulation (EUDR) draws closer. The regulation, which aims to prevent imports linked to deforestation, requires all coffee destined for the EU market to be fully traceable and verified as not originating from deforested land after December 31, 2020.
Under the EUDR, medium and large coffee operators must comply with the requirements by December 30, 2025. Smallholders and micro enterprises, which make up the bulk of Kenya’s coffee producers, have been granted a six-month extension, pushing their compliance deadline to June 30, 2026. Despite this grace period, coffee farmers and exporters are expressing growing concerns over the financial and logistical burden of meeting the strict standards in time.
Coffee is one of Kenya’s major export earners, with over 95 percent of its annual production sold abroad. The European Union (EU) remains the largest buyer, accounting for approximately 55 percent of Kenya’s coffee exports. Countries like Belgium, Germany, Sweden and Finland are the main destinations. In the past five years, Kenya exported about 122,699 metric tonnes of coffee to the EU, earning approximately Ksh 90 billion.
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However, the industry’s heavy dependence on small-scale farmers is now viewed as vulnerability. Around 70 percent of Kenya’s coffee is produced by smallholder farmers who may lack the resources to meet the EU’s new traceability demands. The regulation requires detailed geo-location data for every batch of coffee exported, ensuring that none of it comes from land cleared after 2020. This level of due diligence involves complex mapping, satellite verification and digital tracking systems that many farmers and cooperatives cannot afford on their own.
The Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) has been spearheading efforts to help the country’s coffee sector meet the compliance requirements. So far, they have mapped about 32,688 hectares of coffee farms across 16 of Kenya’s 33 coffee-growing counties. This represents roughly 30 percent of the total coffee farming area in the country. AFA aims to complete the mapping of the remaining farms within the next two months to ensure Kenya’s coffee remains competitive in the EU market.
Despite these efforts, industry players warn that the mapping process is moving too slowly and that many farmers still lack clarity on how the EUDR will affect them. Exporters fear that failure to meet the EU’s compliance deadline could lock Kenya’s coffee out of its most important market, resulting in significant economic losses and threatening the livelihoods of thousands of farmers.
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The EU regulation was officially passed in June 2023 as part of broader global efforts to curb deforestation linked to agricultural commodities. The EUDR covers products like coffee, cocoa, palm oil, soy, beef and timber. Kenya’s coffee farmers must now navigate these complex compliance requirements while competing with producers from other coffee-exporting countries who are also racing to align with the EU rules.
With the December 30, 2025 deadline for medium and large operators fast approaching, and the June 30, 2026 deadline for smallholders not far behind, the coffee industry is calling for urgent interventions. Stakeholders are urging the government to accelerate the mapping process, provide technical support to smallholders, and facilitate access to affordable compliance tools to safeguard Kenya’s coffee exports.
By Benedict Aoya
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