At international events and meetings of the WTO, FAO and OECD, the Brazilian coffee exporting sector has demonstrated the socio-environmental sustainability of coffee

The Brazilian Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafé), the official representative of Brazilian coffee exporters, has been proactively demonstrating the sustainability of Brazilian coffee at the world’s most important discussion forums, with topics related to new regulatory trends in the world’s main markets and the country’s position in the face of new requirements.

As has been widely reported, the sustainability agenda includes a number of approved regulatory projects that create obligations for companies to account for how they address environmental and social issues.

Cecafé has invested in actions to promote its image and sustainability, actively participating in negotiations with the main powers in the main global markets. As a result, Brazilian coffee is at the forefront of sustainability and communication strategies and has become a benchmark for other agricultural products in the country.

For example, CECAFÉ organized a mission to Brussels (BEL), at the headquarters of the European Parliament, from April 22 to 26 of this year, to promote the sustainability of Brazilian coffee and its compliance with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). The most impactful action was carried out in partnership with the Brazilian Mission to the EU, when the “Brazilian Coffee Socio-Environmental Monitoring Platform”, developed by Serasa Experian in partnership with Cecafé, was presented to the political authorities.

For the first time in history, an event coordinated by the Brazilian Mission, in partnership with a private organization, managed to bring together high-level decision-makers from the four main areas of the European Commission, such as the Directorates General (DGs) for Environment, Agriculture and Rural Development, International Partnerships and Trade, as well as envoys from the European Parliament, the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and, most importantly, the authorities responsible for overseeing the EUDR in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Ireland and Slovenia.

Since then, Cecafé has been asked to represent Brazil in bodies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the European Commission and the European Parliament, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and in debates between governments and institutions in various countries, such as Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, among others.

Cecafé has been invited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE), the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa), the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC) and the Foreign Trade Chamber.

In various relevant forums, Cecafé has credibly and consistently presented the information needed to assert our true sustainability and the widespread use of good agricultural practices, strict environmental and social laws, transparency and the breadth of public and official databases.

Recent debates have focused on the critical evaluation of the EUDR, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), among other regulations. On each occasion, Cecafé presented to the authorities
the progress made in sustainability, the technical details of geolocation and the collection of socioenvironmental data from the “Cafés do Brasil” platform.

WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (WTO)

1st meeting: with Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, where participants expressed their commitment to sustainability. In all their contributions, European private sector representatives reaffirmed their commitment to the fight against deforestation but criticized the excessive number of regulations. The new regulations create impacts and disruptions in the market and marginalize countries, especially in Africa, leading to social exclusion.

Cecafé presented Brazil as a continental, diverse and heterogeneous country that has worked hard on environmental and social legislation, with a national campaign around the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR), favorable public policies for those who comply with environmental legislation and the use of good agricultural practices, with lower interest rates for access to rural credit.

2ND MEETING:

 

Cecafé represented Brazil at the WTO “Trade and Environment Week”. The main themes were the balance between environmental goals and agricultural productivity, the role of international cooperation, and reducing the impact of trade disruptions on developing countries.

Together with Ambassador Guilherme de Aguiar Patriota, Representative of the Brazilian Mission to the WTO and other business organizations in Geneva, Cecafé demonstrated the importance of family farming and the country’s environmental and social regulations, knowing that the European Union is Brazil’s main export destination. It was emphasized that Brazilian farmers already comply with regulations on biodiversity and forest protection.

Brazil exports around 57,000 containers of coffee to the EU and ensuring compliance with the new rules is a challenge, as each container can contain product from an average of 150 different farmers.

At the time, Cecafé warned that traceability regulations could lead to social exclusion, especially in African and Latin American countries, whose economies have not yet fully entered the digital age with regulations, national laws, and efforts to generate public and official data.

EUDR COMPETENT AUTHORITIES

Last October, Cecafé participated in a meeting of the Public-Private Task Force of the International Coffee Organization (ICO) with the competent authorities responsible for monitoring the EUDR in the EU Member States.

The meeting, attended by 300 people representing both producer and importer countries as well as political authorities from Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, was a milestone in opening the dialogue on the full implementation of the EUDR in the European Union.

Many players in the bloc still have a misconception about Brazilian coffee production, considering it to be mechanized and made up of large production units, a fact that Cecafé confronted in its statement. At the time, for example, we said that there were around 265,000 farmers in the country, 72% of whom had less than 20 hectares.

We emphasized the heterogeneity and diversity of Brazil’s more than 30 producing regions, explaining that most of them are made up of coffee grown under the pillars of family farming, small-scale production, respect for the environment and people, generating income and well-being for those involved, through the higher average transfer of export value to coffee growers.

In all global forums, it is essential to demonstrate that 66% of the national territory is made up of native vegetation, which, for example, corresponds to the surface of 48 countries and territories in Europe, in addition to all our environmental legislation, in accordance with the principles of the Brazilian Forest Code and the mandatory Rural Environmental Registry, which monitors all agricultural activities.

In conclusion, the work of Cecafé is fundamental in communicating the concrete sustainability actions of Cafés do Brasil on behalf of the country’s coffee exporters and even the country as a whole, as recent experience has shown.

Strategically, presenting this information to policy makers, authorities, importers and consumers is the best way to show the reality of countries and promote world trade in times of ESG. This is an important role of unity and leadership that can be played by the WTO, OECD and FAO, which will continue to count on Cecafé’s contributions.

Marcos Matos
CECAFÉ CEO

Silvia Pizzol
CECAFÉ Sustainability Director