Deforestation Risk Assessment for Coffee Supply Chains

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

Deforestation risk in coffee supply chains: assessing Indonesian coffee origins for EUDR, from forest-edge robusta to shade arabica and protected areas.

Deforestation risk assessment for a coffee supply chain means rating each origin and each supplying garden for the chance that coffee came from land cleared from forest after 31 December 2020, or from land farmed illegally, and acting on the result before an EU lot ships. In Indonesia, the highest coffee risk sits where gardens meet forest, mainly robusta frontiers in southern Sumatra, while the most common technical problem is shade coffee mistaken for forest.

Risk by origin

Risk differs strongly between Indonesian coffee origins. This is a qualitative view to guide where to look first, not a rating.

The Commission’s country benchmarking category for Indonesia sets the overall level of due diligence; risk within Indonesia still varies.

Plot-level risk factors

• Tree cover in 2020 and loss since. The core test. See satellite verification.
• Distance to forest. Gardens at the forest edge can expand into forest between seasons.
• Protected area and forest estate overlap. National parks, protection forest, social forestry permit boundaries.
• Garden age. Young coffee (planted after 2020) on land that was forest in 2020 is non-compliant.
• Unregistered supply. Collectors buying from farmers outside the registered base.
• Volume mismatch. A garden selling more coffee than its area can yield suggests outside coffee.

The shade coffee problem

Indonesia’s best arabica often grows under shade, and robusta in Lampung is frequently intercropped with tall trees. On global tree cover maps these gardens can appear as forest. If a farmer thins shade trees, prunes heavily or replants coffee, the map may record tree cover loss after 2020.

Under the EUDR, established shade coffee is agricultural use, not forest, so these changes are not deforestation. But the burden falls on the supplier to show it. Evidence that resolves the flag:

• Time-series imagery showing a stable garden structure since before 2020.
• Coffee stem size or farmer records showing garden age.
• A field visit with photos and a shade tree inventory.

See EUDR and agroforestry.

Scoring method

1. Origin screen. For each sourcing district, measure forest cover, recent loss and protected area share.
2. Plot screen. For each registered garden, check 2020 cover, post-2020 loss and overlap with protected areas.
3. Classify. Clear, flagged (possible loss), legal question (inside forest estate or park), or uncertain (cloud, mixed pixels).
4. Field verification. Visit flagged and uncertain plots.
5. Supply chain check. Compare collector volumes against registered garden capacity.
6. Decide and record. Keep, exclude or mitigate, with reasons.

Mitigation for coffee

• Exclude gardens cleared after 2020 and gardens without a legal basis in protected areas.
• Use alerts on forest-edge villages and respond quickly.
• Work with social forestry groups whose permits include no-expansion rules.
• Reduce reliance on collectors who cannot name farmers.
• Support agroforestry intensification on existing land, which raises yield without new clearing.

Linking risk data to carbon

The imagery, canopy and tree data used to assess coffee risk is the same data needed to estimate carbon in shade trees. Origins that invest in it can support carbon programmes too. See coffee agroforestry carbon and drivers of deforestation in Indonesia.

Collectors and volume checks

Plot screening only covers the gardens you know about. In collector-based robusta chains, the larger risk is coffee from gardens nobody registered. Volume checks catch this:

• Estimate realistic yield per hectare for each origin and coffee type, using local agronomy data.
• Multiply by registered garden area for each collector to get an expected maximum supply.
• Compare with what the collector actually delivered in the season.

If a collector delivers well above the expected maximum, the surplus came from somewhere else. That collector’s coffee should stay out of EU lots until the gap is explained, for example by registering more farmers. Repeating this each harvest season keeps the register honest without visiting every garden.

Next steps

Risk assessment feeds into coffee due diligence. See the EUDR hub for the full topic map, or message us on WhatsApp about screening your coffee origins through our EUDR compliance services.