Open letter: Support for the geolocation requirement in the draft EU regulation on deforestation fr https://ongidef.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Lettre-aux-membres-du-conseil-et-du-parlement-europeen_Finale.pdf
We are a group of 30 Ivorian civil society organisations and 35 Ivorian farmers’ organisations representing more than 34,700 cocoa smallholders. With this letter, we would like to share with you our position on the draft European regulation on imported deforestation and in particular our full support for the geolocation requirement that it proposes and which would bring us many benefits.
We are committed to the development of a sustainable and fair agricultural supply chain. Since January 2021 and the launch of the policy dialogue between Côte d'Ivoire and the European Union on sustainable cocoa, we have been closely following the discussions and participating when invited. ...
Because, beyond identifying the origin of the cocoa, traceability is not only about tackling deforestation. It is also about social equity and an opportunity to put in place mechanisms that allow producers, the first actors in the supply chain, to make a decent living from their work. Traceability is a unique opportunity for producers to access a digitalized system that will reduce the complexity of
the supply chain and ensure an improvement of their living conditions.
...
It is precisely the complexity of this supply chain that prompts us to reiterate the inclusion of a clear traceability requirement in the European regulation. We want to seize this opportunity to clean up the cocoa sector in our country. The actors in the timber sector seem to be succeeding thanks to the FLEGT VPA process and we want to draw inspiration from this experience.
For our members, small farmers, the implementation of a geolocation requirement will have many other benefits:
1. Geolocation is a necessary pre-requisite for the implementation of electronic payments to producers: a key issue for us and one that we have expressed to the Ivorian authorities.Our Ministry of Agriculture, through the Coffee and Cocoa Council, is currently working to put such payments in place via the national traceability system. The introduction of electronic payments will make payments secure and ensure a credible and sustainable source of supply. This will effectively combat the fraud that our members often fall victim to. The establishment of electronic payments may even one day allow farmers to receive
payments for environmental services.
2. The geo-location of plots and producers makes it possible to clean up the farmer
cooperative system insofar as each producer, thanks to a unique identifier, can only belong to one cooperative. And those who do not respect t