Sustainability Policy for Smallholder Farmers: An Opportunity for Digital Inclusion

In part one of this series on the complex implications of sustainability policies for smallholder farmers  we explored the challenges that the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) creates for smallholder farmers: while many of them use agroforestry methods that improve soil health, sequester carbon and increase biodiversity, farmers often struggle to prove their compliance, blocking their access to important European markets. This is due to the EUDR’s demand for high-tech georeferencing data – often unavailable to smallholder farmers – and the fact that many healthy coffee landscapes with abundant biodiverse tree cover are difficult to detect with such technology, due to their resemblance of forest cover. According to Christian Bunn – Alliance Scientist and expert in coffee and cacao value chains – “remote sensing is notoriously bad at separating agroforestry cropland from forest, with up to 80% of agroforestry coffee plantations classified as forest”. Having understood the challenges of the EUDR, this piece looks at how to harness digital agriculture to provide solutions for smallholder farmers, ensuring that policies to decarbonize agriculture work for the benefit of all.