Coffee and deforestation regulations – green and good for all or a new form of unfair trade?

Coffee production and trade both contributes to, and is threatened by, climate change. Agriculture accounts for around a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. And deforestation to convert land to crop production and livestock pasture is aggravating the problem of climate change.

As part of efforts to support climate change adaptation and mitigation the European Union and the UK have recently introduced a number of measures. These include the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) – which requires importers of coffee (and a range of other commodities) to prove that the coffee production and supply chain was not linked to any deforestation - and similar, although less stringent amendments to the UK’s Environment Act.

But these regulations are emerging in a context of hundreds of years of fraught, arguably unjust trading relationships between low- and middle-income countries exporting primary commodities and advanced industrialized economies. The global coffee business has for more than 200 years had profoundly problematic environmental and human features, expanding through highly exploitative labour relations, concentration of power in global value chains, and deforestation. And despite a range of initiatives in the past 30 years or so, this business has continued to be characterised by a lack of accountability and transparency.

While there is an argument that the EUDR introduces greater transparency across whole supply chains than there has ever been, there are also concerns that the Regulation simply reinforces historical inequalities and introduces new hurdles difficult to jump for low-income producers.

This DLD Conversation will introduce and discuss the issues, drawing on the considerable expertise of our speakers.

About the speakers

• Speaker: Will Corby, Director of Coffee and Social Impact, Pact Coffee
• Discussants: Jodie Keane, Senior Research Fellow, ODI and  Aaron P. Davis, Senior Research Leader, Crops and Global Change, Kew Gardens
• Chair: Christopher Cramer, DLD Co-Director, SOAS