Will coffee soon become more expensive? These are the consequences of the anti-deforestation law | RTL News

Okay. What exactly is the problem?

A cup of coffee, that bar of chocolate, the steak on your plate – there is a good chance that trees have been felled for this. Forests make way for palm oil plantations, trees are cut down to graze cattle or to grow soy – which is then processed into animal feed.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, European consumers are responsible for 16 percent of global deforestation. That’s bad news, because felling releases all the carbon dioxide that the trees have stored. Global deforestation is responsible for 10 to 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV). The European Union wants to reduce its impact on global deforestation.

Enter the EUDR, the EU Deforestation-free Regulation.

The what?

In the Netherlands, this law is called the ‘Deforestation-free Products Regulation’. This requires that companies that import or process the raw materials soy, beef, cocoa, coffee, oil palm (the fruit from which palm oil is extracted) and wood must demonstrate that no forest has been felled for this purpose after 2020.

The rules have been in place since last year, but will come into effect for large companies on December 30 this year. For small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and self-employed persons, the deadline is June 25, 2025. The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) and Customs will enforce the rules. If a company does not comply with the new law, you risk a fine.

What do the companies involved think about this?

They are a bit nervous. “We support the purpose of this law, but we do not yet know what is expected of us in practice,” says Alexander Nobels of coffee and tea specialist Simon Lévelt.

What he does know: ‘his’ company must use so-called polygon data to determine the precise location of each coffee farmer and thus estimate whether the forest has been damaged during the cultivation of the coffee beans. He enters this data into the existing customs system TRACES. Another component is being added to the system, but what will it be? “No idea.” There is still a lot of uncertainty about the system.

Nobels itself does not have to trace the exact origin of the beans. “We request this information from our suppliers. To give you an idea: our supplier in Uganda buys its coffee beans from 12,000 small farmers. An extremely complicated job, where I have to trust that I will receive the correct information,” he says.

Chocolate companies are also still scratching their heads. The Association for the Bakery and Confectionery Industry (VBZ) states that it “is not expected to have access to the information system until December”, while the law will come into effect at the end of that month.

The food industry mainly wants to know more about “what exactly enforcement will look like”. All in all: (slight) stress and unrest in the relevant sectors.

What will consumers notice from the anti-deforestation law?

“More man-hours are being purchased throughout the chain,” reasons Nobels from Simon Lévelt. These are necessary to comply with the law. “It is almost inevitable that these extra costs will be passed on, also to the consumer. I just cannot estimate how high those costs will be.”

Jort Heijmans of the Central Organization for the Meat Sector (COV) expects new administrative burdens for livestock farmers due to the new rules. “The costs of this will be included in the price to meat importers and slaughterhouses and will therefore end up on the consumer’s plate,” he says.

Eddy Esselink of MVO, the chain organization for Oils and Fats, is less certain. The consequences are not immediately noticeable from a more expensive jar of Calvé peanut butter, a more expensive tub of Blue Band or more expensive soap or cleaning products.

“But if you add up all the raw materials to which the deforestation law applies, and the derivative products thereof, then you as a consumer will of course feel this in your wallet,” he thinks.

Nobels fears a ‘side effect’ of the law: that coffee will soon become scarce in Europe. “Coffee farmers may think: what extra work for me to provide all that data. You know what? I’ll sell my coffee elsewhere. Not to companies in the Netherlands, but in the US.”

Do consumers want to pay more for deforestation-free products?

Sigrid Deters, biodiversity campaign leader at Greenpeace, is convinced that most people are happy with this law. During a public consultation by the European Commission, almost 1.2 million European citizens – including 134,000 Dutch – said they wanted stricter legislation against deforestation.

Only the abolition of summer and winter time was more successful than combating deforestation, she says. “People want cheap, but not at all costs.” Furthermore, more than a quarter of Dutch people would be in favor of a ban on the processing of palm oil in products. They increasingly associate palm oil with possible deforestation of tropical rainforest.

Henk Flipsen from Nevedi, an advocate for the animal feed industry (which imports a lot of soy), has a hard time about it. “People say that they are willing to pay more for deforestation-free products, but in practice they often choose the cheapest. And companies that do not pass on their extra costs, but deduct them from their own margin? “These are rare.”