The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) creates both a barrier and a competitive opportunity for Brazilian cacao exporters. Those who can demonstrate traceability and deforestation-free sourcing will maintain European market access; those who cannot will lose contracts.
What EUDR Requires of Brazilian Cacao
For a cacao lot to be exported to the EU, the European importer must provide:
- Geographic coordinates for each producing plot contributing to the lot
- Evidence that none of those plots were forested on 31 December 2020
- Documentation of compliance with applicable Brazilian law (Forest Code, CAR, environmental licenses)
In practice, the Brazilian exporter must collect and provide this data to the European buyer. Without it, the cacao cannot enter the European market.
Key Producing Regions and Their EUDR Challenges
Bahia — Southern Bahia (Cabruca System)
Bahian cacao grown under the cabruca system (Atlantic Forest shade) has a natural advantage: these agroforestry systems predate 2020 and often show increasing tree cover. Well-maintained CAR registrations simplify compliance. The main challenge is fragmentation — many producers have 2–10 ha plots with CAR registered but without digital polygon coordinates in formats usable for spatial analysis.
Pará — Transamazon and Southern Pará
This is Brazil's highest EUDR risk region for cacao. Verification requires cross-referencing with PRODES (INPE's Amazon deforestation monitoring) and MapBiomas to determine whether deforestation on specific plots occurred before or after the 31/12/2020 cut-off.
Step-by-Step Compliance Process for Exporters
- Map your supplier base — Record all producers with name, CPF/CNPJ, municipality, CAR number, total area, and cacao area.
- Collect geospatial data — Download CAR polygons from SICAR in WGS84 format (GeoJSON or shapefile preferred).
- Run deforestation verification — Cross-reference with PRODES and MapBiomas. Per-plot result: GREEN / AMBER / RED.
- Assemble legal compliance documentation — CAR records, producer tax invoices, producer compliance declarations.
- Build the due diligence package — Supplier spreadsheet with coordinates + spatial verification report + CAR copies, organized by export lot.
How Terralyr Supports Brazilian Exporters
Terralyr's cacao traceability module automates geospatial data collection, PRODES and MapBiomas cross-referencing, and due diligence package generation in formats accepted by European buyers — designed to work with cooperative and exporter supplier bases of any size.