Cocoa Exports At Risk As LACRA Admits EU Deforestation Gaps

Published: September 1, 2026

MONROVIA — Liberia’s cocoa and coffee farmers risk losing the market that buys about 65% of their crop, because the country still has no farm mapping, geolocation or traceability system four months before European Union rules barring imports tied to deforestation take effect.

The admission came from the regulator itself. Christopher D. Sankolo, director general of the Liberia Agriculture Commodity Regulatory Authority, said Liberia is not ready for the EU Deforestation Regulation, which large and medium operators must begin applying Dec. 30, 2026.

“Right now, we don’t have that. We don’t have farm mapping, geolocation, geo-registration for our farmers. So we are not yet ready,” Sankolo said at a stakeholder engagement LACRA convened in Monrovia to assess readiness and identify compliance gaps.

Europe is “the biggest market” for Liberian cocoa and coffee, Sankolo said, and “if we cannot sell on that market, then it becomes a challenge for us and our farmers.”

The regulation requires anyone placing cocoa, coffee and five other commodities on the EU market to show geolocation coordinates for the plot of land where the crop was grown and to prove that the land was not cleared after Dec. 31, 2020. That cutoff is what makes ongoing clearing a compliance problem and not only an environmental one.

Sankolo said clearing has not stopped. “As we even speak, right now, deforestation activities are going on in the southeast and other parts of the country. People are still cutting down the forests and planting,” he said.

Michaela Forster of the European Forest Institute, which is working with LACRA on readiness, said the window has nearly closed.

“We’re really in an emergency situation,” Forster said. “We’re very, very short on time, and we have a very short window of opportunity.”

She said Liberia could still use the regulation to transform its agricultural sector rather than be defeated by it, and that forest protection should not come at the expense of livelihoods. “EUDR is coming, and coming very quickly, and rather than just seeing this as a problem and being completely defeated, I think there’s actually a lot of hope,” she said. She said LACRA, the Forestry Development Authority, exporters, farmers and partners should align their work: “Critically, work together, work fast, but work very well.”

Sankolo said traceability is the priority, and that Liberia needs nationwide farm registration, mapping and geolocation to establish where a commodity originates. “People want to know where the farm, the commodity is coming from, where it originates, so that it can be shown that it’s not produced as a result of deforestation,” he said.

LACRA demonstrated a Commodity Management Information System at the engagement, which Sankolo said is a first step toward that infrastructure. The Monrovia meeting followed an earlier session in Lofa County with farmers and other stakeholders.