The Tracer.eco app gives smallholder coffee and cocoa farmers a free online test with immediate results on whether their harvest will be allowed to enter the European Union market, which imports 53 per cent of Kenya’s coffee, after it implements new deforestation laws from 30th December 2024.
The new European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) rules will lock out coffee, cocoa, wood, rubber, beef, palm oil, and soy from forests that were cleared for farmland after December 31, 2020.
According to the International Coffee Partners, 80 per cent of the world’s coffee is produced by 12.5 million smallholder coffee farmers. Many of these farmers have not heard of these new regulations. If they have, unlike bigger coffee farms that have already ensured they are EUDR compliant, they are unable to get and provide the required geolocation data for their farms. “Many smallholder farmers will not access the European Union market– the biggest consumer of Africa’s coffee and cocoa– not because of cultivating on deforested land, but a lack of necessary data to be compliant,” the ICP explained.
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Through Plant-for-the-Planet’s Tracer application, smallholder farmers can geolocate their farmland with just a smartphone and get immediate results on the compliance status of their farms. If the results show that the farm is compliant, they forward this information to their cooperatives to be registered as an EUDR-compliant farmer. If they get back information that they are growing coffee on a farm that was converted to a forest after 31st December 2020, they can use this to consult with cooperatives, trading partners, or farmer NGOs.
To use Tracer, a farmer must first download the Google Earth app on their phone through the Play Store. This will help to generate a map of their farm.
From the app, click on the ‘…More’ button. From its pop-up options pick ‘Path or polygon’. Click on the ‘Enable precise location while using the app’ option. With this, the app locates your exact location on the farm. You’ll then have to ‘Select a starting point’ on your farm and with this, you can move across your coffee farm adding points to draw a line or polygon boundary. Once you are through mapping your farm click on the ‘Close shape’ option followed by ‘Save to project’. You can then save the ‘Local KML file’ to your Drive.
These farm boundaries can be uploaded to Tracer by clicking the ‘Check now for free’ button. Upload the KML file from your Drive fill out your farm’s name, your email address, and what commodity, and finally click on the ‘continue’ button and you will get a report in seconds on whether your farm is EUDR compliant in seconds.
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You will not only get information on whether the farm was deforestation-free as of 31st December 2020, but also if it is in a coffee-growing climate and elevation, of a reasonable size to grow coffee, in a protected site, and if it complies with Kenya’s national laws.