Fairtrade International has launched Plot Insights, a free digital geolocation and deforestation risk platform designed to help certified coffee and cocoa cooperatives meet the European Union’s new deforestation rules, the organization announced on 16 June 2026 in Bonn, Germany, according to Daily Coffee News. The tool targets producer groups that must soon provide detailed farm-level location data to maintain access to the European market under the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
Fairtrade International is making Plot Insights available at no cost to its certified coffee and cocoa cooperatives, according to Access Newswire / Fairtrade America and Daily Coffee News. Fairtrade’s three regional producer networks in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America/Caribbean are currently supporting more than 800 such cooperatives to adopt the system, those sources reported.
The platform, developed with satellite analytics company Satelligence, allows cooperatives to upload farm plot geolocation data, receive instant feedback on data quality and visualization, and obtain deforestation risk analysis, according to Daily Coffee News, 3BL Media, and Fairtrade International. Where the system flags deforestation risk, cooperatives can use the analysis to create mitigation plans required under Fairtrade Standards, such as following up on alerts and monitoring plots near protected areas, those sources stated.
The EUDR requires that coffee and cocoa entering the European Union be traceable to plots that are proven deforestation-free after 31 December 2020, and obliges importers to hold geolocation data for each supplying plot, Daily Coffee News reported. Enforcement is scheduled to begin on 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators and on 30 June 2027 for micro and small enterprises, according to Access Newswire, 3BL Media and regional outlet Food Business MEA.
By the time of the announcement, 86% of targeted Fairtrade coffee cooperatives and 100% of targeted cocoa cooperatives had already submitted their geolocation data for an initial analysis through Plot Insights, according to Fairtrade International’s article “Here’s how Fairtrade is supporting…” on fairtrade.net. Fairtrade states that its producer networks collectively represent more than 1 million coffee and cocoa farmers cultivating 2.5 million hectares, indicating the scale of land now being assessed for deforestation risk under this initiative, as reported by Fairtrade International and Access Newswire.
In a statement quoted by 3BL Media and Access Newswire, Brenda Mariana Huerta García, Senior Advisor for Climate & Environment at Fairtrade International, said that “farmers are having to adopt new digital tools and map farm plots, which is an expensive burden, in order to continue to be viable suppliers to the European market.” She added that “with Plot Insights, Fairtrade coffee and cocoa cooperatives have a free platform to check their geolocation data quality, receive deforestation risk analysis from Satelligence, and share data with their buyers, all built with cooperatives’ businesses in mind and to support our environmental goals towards deforestation.”
In the Asia-Pacific region, Fairtrade’s producer network NAPP reported that a project funded by Fairtrade Germany and Max Havelaar Switzerland led to 28 farmer organizations—57% of the participants—across India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, China and Timor Leste completing geospatial mapping by October 2025, according to Fairtrade NAPP’s page on fairtrade.net. This regional work forms part of the broader support for cooperatives preparing to use Plot Insights and related digital systems, Fairtrade NAPP stated.
Plot Insights sits inside Unify, Fairtrade’s new centralized digital hub, with certified producer organizations as the first users, Daily Coffee News and newsletter The Coffee Post reported. Fairtrade plans to allow cooperatives to share their geolocation data with European buyers via the Fairtrace platform starting in October 2026, with data automatically converted into an EUDR-aligned format and attached to sales contracts, according to Daily Coffee News, Access Newswire and 3BL Media.
Satelligence founder and CEO Niels Wielaard said in a Fairtrade International article titled “Fairtrade producers set to expand deforestation monitoring…” that the company aims for “a more inclusive and sustainable future by giving smallholders the most advanced tools to empower and encourage them.” He stated that the partnership is intended to help prevent “further marginalisation of farmers by unlocking access to markets with proof that their goods are deforestation-free,” and noted that “many companies are still unprepared for EUDR, but Fairtrade cooperatives will be ahead of the curve.”
