How Ethiopia’s Coffee Farmers Are Outsmarting The Weird New EU Deforestation Laws

One of the privileges that comes from publishing a daily coffee news and culture publication like Sprudge is our ability to provide coverage continuity. A particularly prescient example of this came across our desks last week. For the last three years, we’ve reported on legislation that’s made its way through the European Union focused on limiting deforestation in Africa, with a troubling set of after-effects on the livelihoods of African coffee producers. This is a serious, complex set of issues, and our original reporting (from 2021) wondered if this might not lead to a ban on coffee importation altogether in the EU. In late 2022 a version of the laws was passed, and throughout 2023 major pushbacks occurred from the European Coffee Federation, Lavazza, and other European coffee leaders. (The Specialty Coffee Association has not commented publicly.)