What the deforestation rules ask a member to hold

Sample entry. Written to exercise the Coffee Pulse templates — the association has not published this.

The regulation asks a buyer in Europe to prove where a lot grew and that the land behind it was not cleared. That proof is a file, and a file has to exist before the coffee moves — which is why the association builds it with members at registration rather than at the border.

Three things the file carries

Nothing here is new work for a member who registered their plot. It is the same record, arranged the way the regulation asks for it.

• Plot geolocation. Mapped once, with the kebele and the area, and kept on file.
• Deforestation-free evidence. Held against the plot rather than assembled per shipment.
• A due-diligence statement. Issued for the lot it belongs to, and verifiable against it.

A member meets a European buyer already proven. The alternative is reconstructing a year of paperwork at the point where a container is waiting.

What a member still brings

The association holds the custody chain and the certificates. What it cannot hold for you is the part only you know: which plots fed which delivery, and when. Registering that at intake is the whole of the member’s side of it.