Ojo Ayaninuola was not accustomed to seeing people walk through his cocoa farm in Akure, southwestern Nigeria, recording coordinates and drawing its boundaries on a digital map. At first, the smallholder resisted. He did not understand why the precise location of his land had suddenly become a condition for selling a crop he had grown for years.

A warning from Sunbeth Global, the major Nigerian exporter that buys his beans, eventually changed his mind: without a mapped farm and verifiable records, his cocoa could lose access to the European Union.

Ayaninuola’s experience captures the upheaval now facing West Africa’s cocoa industry as the EU prepares to enforce rules barring commodities linked to deforestation. Thousands of farmers may be excluded from one of their most important markets—not necessarily because their cocoa was grown on recently cleared land, but because they cannot produce the digital evidence required to prove otherwise.

More than half of Nigeria’s output at risk

Industry specialists cited by Reuters estimate that farmers responsible for more than half of Nigeria’s cocoa production may be unable to meet the requirements when enforcement begins on December 30.

Nigeria, the world’s fourth-largest cocoa producer, has about 300,000 growers, most of them smallholders operating in remote rural areas, according to the Nigerian Export Promotion Council.

Many lack formal land documents or accurate farm maps. Their beans also pass through several local buyers and intermediaries before reaching an exporter. Cocoa from different farms is frequently mixed during collection, transport and storage, breaking the chain of information European importers will need.

The EU is difficult to replace as a market. It buys roughly 60% of the world’s cocoa, while West Africa produces around 70% of global supply and ships about two-thirds of its output to Europe.

What the regulation requires

Under the EU Deforestation Regulation, a general assurance that cocoa was not grown on recently cleared forest land will no longer be sufficient. Companies must submit due-diligence declarations supported by the geographical coordinates of the plots where the commodity was produced.

They must show that the products did not come from land deforested after December 31, 2020, and that production complied with the relevant laws of the country of origin.

The regulation covers cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy, timber and cattle, as well as derived products including chocolate.

Its main obligations will apply to large and medium-sized companies from December 30, 2026. Most micro and small enterprises have until June 30, 2027.

The European Commission links the legislation to the EU’s estimated responsibility for about 10% of global deforestation driven by consumption. This differs from the occasionally reported claim that the law itself is designed to reduce worldwide deforestation by 10%.

Compliance begins at farm level

In principle, the process appears straightforward: map each farm, compare its coordinates with forest-cover data and maintain a digital record that follows the beans to Europe.

In West Africa, however, that means surveying thousands of individual plots, confirming ownership and legal land use, and preventing compliant beans from being mixed with cocoa of uncertain origin during transport, storage and export.

Nigerian exporters including Sunbeth Global and Starlink Global have invested in farm mapping, grower registration and training. The unresolved issue is who will ultimately pay for it.

Most smallholders cannot afford the mapping and documentation themselves. Exporters want to recover their investment, while some European buyers remain reluctant to accept higher prices. Farmers fear the cost may eventually return to them in the form of lower farmgate prices.

Half of Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa lacks clear traceability

The scale of the challenge is even greater in Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer and exporter. The EU received 66% of the country’s cocoa exports in 2024.

Trase, an initiative specialising in supply-chain transparency, estimated that only 48% of Ivorian cocoa exports that year could be traced to their specific departments of production using publicly disclosed company information. The remaining 52% lacked comparable visibility.

A lack of traceability does not prove that cocoa was grown on deforested land. It does, however, make compliance much harder to demonstrate. Indirect sourcing and the mixing of beans also limit companies’ ability to identify other risks, including child labour.

According to Trase, 79% of Côte d’Ivoire’s forests were lost or degraded between 2000 and 2024. Cocoa expansion accounted for nearly half of forest loss during much of that period.

A two-tier cocoa market

Sustainability adviser and former global cocoa trader Nico Dehnbaum believes EU importers may initially struggle to obtain enough fully documented cocoa from Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and other producing countries.

The supply pressure could last for about two years while exporters expand traceability systems and register more growers. During that period, a two-tier market may emerge: documented cocoa sold to Europe at a premium, and untraceable beans redirected to other markets or purchased at a discount.

The consequences extend beyond potentially higher costs for chocolate manufacturers. A farmer who has not been reached by mapping teams could lose a buyer even if his plantation has existed for decades and has never expanded into a forest.

That is the central test awaiting the EU regulation as it moves from Brussels to West Africa’s cocoa farms. Protecting forests is essential, but the policy’s credibility will depend on ensuring that the burden of proof does not become a penalty imposed on the smallest and least equipped participant in the supply chain.

ظهرت المقالة Cocoa’s New Borders: EU Deforestation Rules Put Thousands of West African Farmers at Risk أولاً على African Percentions.