Vietnam's world famous coffee industry urged to adapt to EU's anti-deforestation law

Image from Vietnam News/ANN

HANOI (Xinhua): The Vietnamese coffee industry should step up the value chain digitalization to get ready for the European Union's Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), local media have reported.

As a major coffee exporter to the EU, the South-East Asian country should get prepared for the law which requires the products weren't sourced from deforested land or land with forest degradation to be eligible for entering the EU market, Vietnam News reported.

The integration of digital technology was critical to meet the regulations on deforestation-free products, the newspaper cited the Vietnam Trade Office in Belgium.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, origin traceability to every plot of land, one of EUDR's requirements, was the biggest challenge as this is a costly task for many operators.

This prompts Vietnam to develop a national database about forest and coffee plantation areas, the newspaper said.

In a recent workshop, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan underlined that the EUDR will directly impact the supply chains of coffee, wood and wooden products and rubber.

However this is also a chance for the Vietnamese agricultural sector to develop towards transparency, responsibility, sustainability and green growth, he said.

In 2022, Vietnam reaped 1.49 billion U.S. dollars from exporting coffee to the EU market, surging 45 percent year on year. This accounted for 40 percent of Vietnam's total coffee export, according to the Vietnam Import- Export Report 2022. - Xinhua