Kenya races to meet EU deforestation rules ahead of December 2025 deadline

Immaculate Chebet-MyGov

Kenya is expected to comply fully with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) by 30th December 2025, to continue exporting products to the European Union (EU) market.

Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) Director General (DG) , Dr. Bruno Linyiru, said the EUDR requires all companies exporting agricultural exports to the EU must prove they were not produced as a result of deforestation.

“These products need to be traceable to land that has not been deforested as of 31 December 2020,” he added.

Dr. Linyiru noted that the regulation applies to commodities linked to deforestation such as coffee, cocoa, soy, beef, palm oil, rubber and wood. 

To implement the regulation, Dr. Linyiru said the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock development has embarked on a process to map all the parcels of land under coffee farming. 

“Approximately 30 per cent of the national coffee area in 16 counties out of 33, has been Geo-Mapped using satellite imagery. This represents 32,688 Ha of the total 109,384 Ha coffee area countrywide,” he added.

 According to him, the remaining areas will be mapped by several teams under the EUDR Data Committee: State Department of Agriculture (SDA), State Department for Cooperatives, Kenya Forest Service (KFS), Kenya Space Agency (KSA), Directorate of Remote Survey and Remote Sensing (DRSRS) and Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), under AFA supervision.

Dr. Linyiru added that the exercise is part of AFA’s mandate as the regulator of scheduled crops under the Crops Act, 2013.

“The regulation was initially set to take effect by 30th December 2024, but the EU extended the deadline to 2025,” he said

He explained that the EUDR aims to ensure that products traded and consumed in the EU and globally do not contribute to forest degradation.

Kenya exports 95 per cent of its coffee, with approximately 55 per cent targeting the EU, mainly Belgium, Germany, Sweden, and Finland. 

Over the past five years, Kenya exported 122,699 Metric Tonnes (MT) of clean coffee to the EU, valued at USD 695.7 million, equivalent to about Sh90billion. 

Smallholder farmers contribute approximately 60 per cent of Kenya’s total coffee production, forming the backbone of the rural economy in 33 coffee-growing counties.