Plot Geolocation and Polygons for Cocoa Under EUDR

Updated 2026-11-02 · 4 min read · By the akar.earth specialist team

EUDR geolocation for cocoa: mapping Sulawesi cocoa gardens under shade, points vs polygons, multiple gardens per farmer and linking plots to bean lots.

For cocoa under the EUDR, every garden that supplies beans needs geolocation: a point with at least six decimal places for gardens of 4 hectares or less, and a polygon for larger ones. In Sulawesi and other Indonesian cocoa areas, gardens are small, often shaded, and many farmers have more than one, so good mapping means walking each garden with the farmer and linking it to the beans they sell.

What cocoa gardens look like on the ground

A typical Indonesian cocoa farmer has one to three gardens, often under 2 hectares each. Gardens may sit on gentle valley land near the village or on hill slopes further away. Shade ranges from almost none, in gardens planted in full sun during the boom years, to dense mixtures of gliricidia, coconut, banana, durian, langsat and timber trees. Many gardens also contain other crops, such as cloves or pepper, and some are partly converted to maize or other crops.

These features matter for mapping:

• Mixed gardens. Decide where the cocoa garden ends and other land begins. If cocoa grows throughout a mixed plot, map the whole plot.
• Shade canopy. Reduces phone GPS accuracy, particularly under coconut and dense fruit trees.
• Multiple gardens. Each one is a separate plot. One point per farmer is not enough.
• Changing use. Gardens partly replaced by other crops need updated boundaries.

Point or polygon for cocoa

The general rules are in polygon requirements.

Field method for a cocoa village

1. Village meeting. Explain the purpose, agree dates, and get the village head’s support.
2. Farmer registration. Name, ID, consent, and list of gardens. See farmer registration and consent.
3. Garden walk. Field officer and farmer walk the boundary. Pause at corners. Take a photo at the garden centre with coordinates.
4. Record attributes. Planting year of cocoa, replanting or grafting history, main shade species, land document type.
5. Quality check on the spot. Our AKAR Mapper checks for self-intersections, overlaps with neighbouring gardens, and area against the farmer’s estimate.
6. Upload and review. An analyst checks gardens against imagery the same week.

For dense canopy or steep hill gardens, RTK GNSS gives much better boundaries than a phone. See RTK GNSS plot mapping.

Linking gardens to beans

Geolocation only counts if the beans can be tied to it. In cocoa, farmers sell small quantities of dried beans often, sometimes weekly, to village collectors. For EUDR lots:

• Collectors record the farmer ID with every purchase.
• Bags are tagged with collector and date, and farmer IDs listed per bag or per day.
• Warehouses keep registered beans separate.
• Annual bean sales per farmer are compared with the area and condition of their gardens.

Yield checks are particularly useful in cocoa. Yields per hectare vary widely with tree age and pest pressure, but a garden selling well above a plausible range for its area is a red flag for outside beans.

Data checks before export

• WGS84 coordinates with at least six decimals.
• Valid polygons, no overlaps between farmers unless explained.
• Every garden over 4 hectares mapped as a polygon.
• Gardens checked against protected area and forest estate boundaries.
• Duplicates removed, since a farmer may sell to two collectors and be registered twice.

Using the same map for rehabilitation and carbon

Many Sulawesi gardens need rehabilitation. A garden map with planting year and shade data supports grafting and replanting programmes, input credit, and agroforestry carbon projects. Measuring shade trees during the same visit adds data for carbon estimates at little extra cost. See cocoa agroforestry carbon and one dataset for carbon and EUDR.

Mapping speed and cost

How long does garden mapping take? It depends on terrain, distance and how many gardens each farmer has. Lowland gardens near the village can be walked quickly; hill gardens an hour’s walk away take most of a morning. Plan campaigns by village, schedule visits outside the main harvest peaks, and train local enumerators who know the paths. Mapping during programme visits that farmers already attend, such as training or input distribution, cuts costs further.

Next steps

See cocoa smallholders for farmer engagement and the EUDR hub for the full topic map. For a garden mapping campaign in Sulawesi or other cocoa areas, see our field data campaigns or message us on WhatsApp.