The initiative, known as the Coffee Canopy Partnership, brings together industry players including JDE Peet's, Tchibo, Louis Dreyfus Company, Sucden, Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, Touton, and Sucafina. The group aims to tackle one of the sector’s most persistent challenges: accurately identifying where coffee farming intersects with forest ecosystems.
At the core of the project is a combination of satellite imagery and artificial intelligence. Data provided by Airbus will be analyzed using advanced AI models to map coffee farms and detect nearby forest loss. By improving the precision of land classification, the system is expected to help distinguish between natural forests and sustainable farming methods such as shade-grown coffee and agroforestry.
The partnership’s initial focus will be East Africa, covering key coffee-producing countries including Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda. These regions are both vital to global coffee supply and particularly sensitive to environmental pressures. The companies plan to expand coverage to all coffee-growing regions worldwide by 2027.
The effort comes as new regulatory pressure builds in Europe. Under the EU Deforestation Regulation, coffee produced on land classified as forest after December 2020 will be barred from entering EU markets. The rules are set to take effect for large companies by the end of 2026, with smaller businesses following in 2027.
Industry leaders warn that without more accurate mapping, millions of smallholder farmers could be unfairly excluded from global markets. Many already practice sustainable farming, but outdated or imprecise data has sometimes misclassified their land as natural forest, putting their livelihoods at risk.
By addressing gaps in historical land-use data, the Coffee Canopy Partnership aims to provide a clearer, more reliable picture of coffee landscapes. The system will also be made accessible to governments, farmers, and other stakeholders, enabling collaborative efforts to restore degraded areas and prevent further deforestation.
Ultimately, the initiative reflects a broader shift in the coffee sector: leveraging technology not just for efficiency, but to ensure environmental accountability while protecting the farmers who sustain the global supply.