...Exporters say they are 80% ready
…FG struggles with its role
By Cynthia Alo
Nigeria risks losing over $1 billion, about N1.4 trillion, in annual earnings from agro exports if it fails to meet the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation, EUDR, deadline of December 30, 2026.
The EUDR requires that commodities entering the EU market, including cocoa, coffee, cattle, palm oil, rubber, soy, and wood, be proven deforestation-free, legally produced, and traceable to exact farm plots using GPS coordinates.
A product qualifies as deforestation-free only if it was not grown on land cleared after December 31, 2020, whether the clearing was legal or illegal under local law.
Multi-ingredient products face an added layer of scrutiny, as each regulated commodity in them, such as palm oil and cocoa derivatives in a single cosmetic item, must be separately traced and verified.
The regulation, formally known as EU 2023/1115, was adopted in 2022 and entered into force in June 2023.
Its start date has since been pushed back twice, with the amended version, Regulation (EU) 2025/2650, published in December 2025, fixing the compliance deadline at December 30, 2026, for large and medium operators, and June 30, 2027, for micro and small operators.
Nigeria, listed as a standard-risk country under the regulation, must carry out full due diligence on its exports or face a total ban from the EU market, which buys about 60 per cent of global cocoa supply.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, had warned that the country stands to lose far more than direct trade if it fails to adapt.
According to him, Nigeria faces the risk of losing over $1 billion in direct export earnings and more than $3 billion in total economic value each year if we fail to adapt.
In November 2025, the Ministry launched ‘White Paper,’ a national framework for produce traceability, farmland monitoring, deforestation-free supply chain verification, data collection, and capacity-building for smallholder farmers, who account for the bulk of Nigeria’s commodity output.
The Ministry also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), which will allow NASRDA to provide satellite imagery and real-time monitoring support.
A recent investigation published by Reuters last week found that exporters are already absorbing steep compliance costs ahead of the deadline.
In the report, Starlink Global and Ideal, the country’s biggest cocoa exporter, said it has spent between $40 and $80 a ton mapping and tracing its supply chain since 2023, costs it says it has yet to recover from European buyers.
Sunbeth Global, another major exporter, has deployed hundreds of field agents over the past three years and hired a 35-person sustainability team working with Amsterdam-based data verification firm Meridia, to help farmers comply with Nigerian labour laws and EUDR requirements.
Sunbeth’s Chief Operating Officer, Nzubechukwu Anisiobi, said that early conversations with buyers had already produced pushback over who should bear the cost of compliance.
“The cost-benefit analysis right now is eating into our margins,” Anisiobi said.
However, at a recent event organised by Sunbeth, the company’s sustainability team identified farmer sensitisation, rather than technology, as the biggest obstacle to farm mapping and traceability.
The team said, “The biggest challenge to mapping is not even the technology. Technology is simple; you can throw money at things like that. But you need to be able to sensitise the farmers. “You cannot force somebody to collect the data. They will tell you that if you don’t buy from them, another company will.”
The team also linked EUDR compliance to broader land tenure issues in Nigeria, noting that land ownership equality is a key part of the regulation, but customary land ownership in the country is predominantly held by men, even in households where women do equal work on the farm.
Industry experts cited by Reuters estimate that farmers producing more than half of Nigeria’s cocoa could struggle to meet the EU’s requirements once the rules take effect.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government insists the country is largely ready for the transition.
Speaking to Vanguard AgroBiz, Secretary, National Task Force on EUDR compliance, Mr. Ajayi Olutobaba, said most exporters are about 80 per cent ready for compliance, given that Nigeria operates a fully deregulated cocoa economy.
“Most exporters are about 80 per cent ready for EUDR compliance since Nigeria is a fully deregulated cocoa economy, though compliance is country based and Nigeria must be compliant with EUDR by 30th December 2026,” Olutobaba said.
Olutobaba, who is also the Deputy Director, Tree Crops, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFS) and Secretary, National Cocoa Management Committee, however, acknowledged that traceability remains a challenge in parts of the country.
He noted that many cocoa farms are intercropped, rehabilitated, or located at the forest fringe, making it difficult to prove their origin even when they are compliant.
He stated: “Without clear data, we risk having compliant cocoa rejected simply because we cannot prove its origin.”
Olutobaba added, “The ministry’s approach has followed two steps: first, aligning with state governments on what the EUDR’s forest legality requirements mean for them, and second, driving synergy by overlaying state forest reserve maps, state land use maps, and the national forest cover maps anchored by NASRDA, alongside cocoa farm mapping data.”
He said this is expected to help identify and protect High Conservation Value areas, confirm that commodity expansion is happening on existing farmland rather than in forests, and build a single national cocoa-and-forest geodatabase for due diligence purposes.
He also said the Federal Government, through the ministry and NASRDA, will continue to provide the technical support, satellite data, and coordination platform needed for the exercise, while state governments handle validation and farmer sensitisation on the ground.
While much of the reform momentum has been driven by federal policy, Olutobaba noted that state governments are also establishing institutional structures, including strategic committees, multi-stakeholder platforms, and coordination mechanisms, to align local governance with the national compliance strategy.
He described this as, in itself, a form of institutional reform.
Olutobaba said cocoa-producing states, including Ondo, Cross River, Abia, Osun, Taraba, Oyo, Ogun, Ekiti, Kwara, Kogi, Edo, Imo, and Delta, have received forest reserve maps and are expected to validate their boundaries and support farmer sensitisation on planting only within legally designated agricultural areas.
He said the Traceability and Resilience in Agriculture and Cocoa Ecosystems (TRACE), a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) project in Nigeria, working with the National Task Force on EUDR compliance, currently has a consultant visiting states, starting with the South-South, South-East, and South-West, to engage relevant ministries, departments, and agencies on resolving the legality issue, which he described as a major challenge to compliance.
In a call with Vanguard AgroBiz, Global President, Cocoa and Coffee Farmers Alliance Association of Africa (COCEFAAA),Comrade Adeola Adegoke, said more than 70 per cent of farmers have already been captured under the compliance drive, despite security challenges and poor rural infrastructure.
“We are more than 70 percent compliant. The EU buys two-thirds of cocoa, not 100 percent. EU cannot buy all our cocoa. There are other places that are not asking for regulation, such as Asia, America, and India.”
He said farmers are relying on cooperatives and mobile mapping applications to capture their farm data, often without external support, but stakeholders across the government and the private sector are coordinating to avoid disruption when the regulation takes effect.
Adegoke said farmers are also adopting agroforestry and soil management practices to protect existing trees, replant where necessary, and create additional income through cocoa and charcoal production, while keeping farmers from encroaching on protected areas in search of fertile land.
He insisted the regulation should be seen as an opportunity rather than a burden.
He stated: “EUDR should be an opportunity; it should not be a deprivation. We are trying to make it an opportunity rather than becoming a deprivation for us.”
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