Several coffee industry participants have announced a joint program to monitor deforestation linked to coffee production using satellite data and artificial intelligence, according to a statement from JDE Peet's.
Named the Coffee Canopy Partnership, the initiative will employ satellite imagery provided by Airbus together with AI models to identify coffee farms and detect nearby forest loss. The stated goal is to accurately distinguish agricultural landscapes from natural forest and to work alongside governments and local communities to restore tree cover and stop future deforestation.
Organizers said participating entities include JDE Peet's - which is now part of Keurig Dr Pepper - as well as Tchibo and commodities traders Louis Dreyfus Company, Sucden, Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, Touton and Sucafina.
The program will initially concentrate on East Africa, covering Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda. The consortium said it intends to extend the system to achieve global coverage of all coffee-growing regions by 2027.
The announcement referenced the European Union's Deforestation Regulation. Under that regulation - expected to enter into force on December 30 for large corporations and on June 30, 2027 for micro and small enterprises - coffee produced on land that has been classified as forest after December 2020 may be barred from entering EU markets.
JDE Peet's said that the regulation "threatens to exclude millions of smallholder farmers from key markets, despite their sustainable farming practices, simply because existing maps incorrectly classify their agroforestry or shade-grown coffee production land as forest." The company added the new initiative will address what it described as "the historical lack of precise mapping data, which has frequently resulted in coffee farms... being misidentified as natural forest."
According to the statement, the mapping system will be open for consultation by farmers, governments and the coffee industry.
Context and implementation notes
- The Coffee Canopy Partnership pairs Airbus satellite imagery with AI-driven analysis to map coffee farms and identify forest loss nearby.
- Initial focus is on six East African nations, with a stated objective of worldwide coverage by 2027.
- The program is presented as a response to potential market access impacts under the EU Deforestation Regulation and to correct mapping inaccuracies that can misclassify agroforestry systems.