Coffee is Ethiopia’s main export productApproximately a third of income comes from exports, and it is the main source of foreign currency. However, the new deforestation rules of the European Union, the largest buyer of coffee for Ethiopia and to whom it sells 30% of its exports, could leave it out of the game regardless of whether it is one of the best quality on the market.

In Ethiopia they have been traditionally producing their liquid gold for centuries and, according to the professor at the University of Damaso, Mario Lozano, it is “an organic crop.” For the most part, they are small farmers who They grow coffee without pesticides or fertilizers, but they do it in the middle of the jungle and, for that, they need to remove trees. And although “no more than 30% is deforested“, as Lozano reports “because the rest are tall trees that the coffee bushes need to protect themselves from the sun”; the European Union does not allow it.

The institution has put new regulations on the table where it ensures that will not accept within its borders any product that comes from recently deforested areas, although environmental experts assure that the standard is good but that, as always, we must help the countries of origin, such as Ethiopia, where “supporting the transition so that it can live up to the demands of the European Union has benefits in dimensions, to economic and knowledge level“says Fernando Valladares, CSIC scientist and professor of ecology at the King Juan Carlos University.

In Ethiopia five million small farmers depend on this crop, since more than 30% of this coffee is exported to EU countries, and taking this market away from them would mean losing everything.