Honduran coffee shipment first to align with Europe’s upcoming deforestation rules using open-source traceability software

Highlights:

• 85% of Honduran coffee farmers may be at risk of losing access to the European market due to a lack of tools to trace the deforestation-free status of their coffee.
• A digital platform adapted in February 2025 for Honduran coffee growers – the vast majority of whom are small-scale producers – allowed hundreds to comply with incoming rules, experts say, and ship 20.7 tonnes of coffee to Europe in May.
• Alliance researchers and almost a dozen partner organizations in Honduras and abroad are expanding their collaboration, which created the open-source digital platform, to align more farmers with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) deadline in June 2026.
• The open-source software used is accessible to farmers at little to no cost, as their often-thin margins limit their ability to invest in compliance individually.

In a landmark achievement for the Honduran coffee industry, a coalition shipped one of the country’s first containers of coffee aligned with the upcoming European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), demonstrating that inclusive, transparent supply chains are possible and already being built, the coalition said. The Honduran blueprint can be followed by other nations pursuing EUDR compliance.

A multi-party agreement to use shared digital infrastructure for future EUDR compliance enabled tracing the coffee from several hundred smallholder farmers as it exchanged hands several times before being shipped.

The traceability platform was designed for farmers who grow “conventional” arabica coffee, which accounts for about 85% of Honduras’s production, and who typically operate outside the more thoroughly mapped, certified supply chains.

Without such a system, many of these farmers may risk exclusion from the European market, which buys more than 50% of Honduras’s coffee exports. The effort was implemented in one of the country’s most challenging contexts: supply chains dominated by farmgate sales and multiple private intermediaries with varying levels of digital capacity.

The shipment contained almost 457 quintales (20.7 tonnes) of arabica coffee produced in the northwestern departments of Lempira and Santa Bárbara. The shipment comes before the June 2026 EUDR deadline for small- and medium-sized exporters of products that often drive deforestation.

Scientists at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT mediated the group’s agreement to develop the platform. The Alliance contributed to the design and adaptation of and open-source, open-access component, TraceFoodChain, developed by Permarobotics, underscoring the cooperative global approach to addressing EUDR compliance in Honduras.

“As Europeans, my team is so proud that we could help solve difficulties we caused Honduran coffee growers with our EUDR legislation,” said Dr. Christian Hennig, CEO of Permarobotics. “Deforestation-free regulations are an absolute must, but we as European consumers should be part of the solution, particularly when climate-conscious rules cause friction in supply chains.”

The tool was used alongside a traceability platform, called OSapiens, used by Honduran coffee exporter BECAMO. Building interoperability between tools was critical to the project. The code for TraceFoodChain was donated to the Linux Foundation’s AgStack Initiative. The Linux Foundation’s Asset Registry, another component of the shared platform, ensured the preservation of farmer privacy while enabling spatial data management and sharing.

“Mapping 12.5 million coffee farms globally is a key challenge and cost driver of compliance with EUDR,” said Carolin Ehrensperger, Head of Group Sustainability at Neumann Kaffee Gruppe. “This pilot in Honduras is a proof-of-concept showing that open-source software can significantly decrease the costs, while ensuring quality of data, data privacy and ownership of data by producers. We aim to expand this approach in Honduras and further origins to achieve our objective of continued access to European markets for smallholder producers.”

"This collaborative approach enabled us to resolve two critical bottlenecks that increase the risk that smallholder farmers will be excluded from the EU market:  interoperability so that spatial and farm data can travel the chain to demonstrate EUDR compliance, and ensuring the agency and privacy of farmers,” said Brian King, a senior manager for technology integration with the Alliance.

King helped arrange the initial group commitment to develop a shared infrastructure and facilitate the prototyping and collaborative design sessions. This led to a shared "solution set," several open-source digital tools used in tandem to enable the shipment.

The Alliance's support combined fieldwork, technical collaboration, and piloting the digital platform to guide data collection on harvests from participating producers. Field testing led to improvements tailored to Honduran producers.

Honduran coffee exporters BECAMO  (Beneficio de Café Montecristo), Beneficio Río Frío, Beneficio Rosales, led the export of the coffee in collaboration with Confianza SA-FGR, a loan guarantor for small enterprises, GrainChain, which provides traceability and financial services to smallholders, and the Honduran Coffee Institute, IHCAFE.

“For us at Becamo, the future of Honduran coffee lies in our ability to open international markets to our producers while maintaining strong sustainability values,” said Ramon Medina, the CEO at Becamo. “Aligning with EUDR isn’t just about checking a box—it’s about standing firm in our responsibility to protect nature and support the communities that have cultivated coffee for generations. This accomplishment shows that creating transparent, inclusive supply chains is not just doable— it’s essential for the future of responsible coffee trade.”

“This is a proud moment for Honduras. We’ve shown that compliance with EUDR is achievable through collaboration, technology, and a shared commitment to sustainability— from producers to exporters,” said José Manuel Calero Moraga, the Manager of tof the Unit for Sustainable Service to Producers at Becamo. “We expect our achievement to strengthen the Honduran coffee sector and set an example that other nations can follow."

"The milestone shows how producers, processors, exporters, researchers and cutting-edge technology firms can rise to the challenge of global markets that are demanding greater sustainability measures in agricultural supply chains," said Federico Ceballos, a postdoctoral fellow at the Alliance.

Built in Honduras, for Honduras

At the heart of this achievement is a national alliance of organizations committed to protecting forests, increasing transparency, and keeping smallholder producers at the center of international trade, through field data collection supported by local community leaders.

“We worked hand-in-hand with farmers to gather geolocation and production data, and the platform helped us record each step—from cherry reception to export," said José Dario Enamorado Leiva, the IT and Operations Manager at Beneficio Río Frío, one of the companies that consolidated the coffee."The infrastructure is user-friendly, aligns with how we operate on the ground, and helps ensure that small producers can meet market requirements with confidence.”
 

Open source, local impact

Honduran coffee growers are used to weathering shocks. Hurricane Mitch decimated Honduran agriculture in 1998. The 2009 coup disrupted national coffee supply chains. Today, producers face a drop in production due to coffee rust disease and labor shortages, yet Honduras remains one of the world's leading coffee producers – in part because its industry is well-organized and focuses on making the most of its arabica coffee, which demands higher prices and is the only variety that it produces.

EUDR compliance is yet another challenge the Honduran coffee industry expects to rise to – and, in doing so, it could position the industry for greater resilience in the future.

"In the long term, alignment with deforestation-free standards may open opportunities for recognition, traceability premiums and more resilient trade relationships," said William Ricardo Igeler, a senior research associate at the Alliance based in Honduras.

The infrastructure lays the foundation for a new array of data-driven services including credit guarantees, improved access to weather services and agricultural advisories, and better overall preparedness for sustainable coffee production.

Alliance researchers and partners are already working with other coffee-growing regions in Honduras that will need to incorporate EUDR compliance to maintain access to the European market.

"We are gradually expanding the adoption of digital public infrastructure for the coffee sector in Honduras," Igeler said. "As more actors get involved, tools like this will become more widely known and adopted."

Project collaborators would like to acknowledge the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). The work was carried out under the CGIAR Science Program on Policy Innovations. Project collaborators also thank all funders who supported this research through contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund (www.cgiar.org/funders).

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More quotes and information
 

Dr. Christian Hennig, CEO of Permarobotics:
“We’re proud to support Honduran partners in making history. This is what open source is all about—sharing tools that work for the people who need them most.”

Sumer Johal, Executive Director of the AgStack Initiative:
“AgStack exists to support local innovation like this. We’re honored that our open infrastructure played a role in enabling this milestone shipment.”

Brian King, from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, noted:
“The Honduran coffee sector has shown what it means to lead with openness and cooperation. This is a model for inclusive compliance anchored in scientific collaboration and enabled by open digital tools.”

This milestone was made possible thanks to the coordinated efforts of national actors committed to digital innovation, sustainability, and producer inclusion. The partners are:

Becamo is a leading Honduran exporter focused on traceability, quality, and sustainable sourcing.

IHCAFE (Instituto Hondureño del Café) supports the national coffee sector through research, technical assistance, and innovation.

Beneficio Río Frío and Beneficio Rosales are key processing centers advancing traceability and smallholder inclusion.

Confianza SA-FGR provides loan guarantees and risk management services to the Honduran financial sector in support of rural producers.

GrainChain is a provider of traceability and financial services to small producers.

Permarobotics is the developer of TraceFoodChain and a contributor to the AgStack open-source ecosystem.

Linux Foundation’s AgStack Initiative, a provider of digital public infrastructure for agriculture.