Indonesia urges EU to support farmers in adapting to deforestation rules

deforested land. As a leading producer of these crops, Indonesia fears that the compliance burden will disproportionately affect its nearly eight million smallholder farmers. Speaking at an embassy event in Brussels, Erma Rheindrayani, Director for Americas and Europe at Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, emphasized that while the EUDR cannot be changed, the focus must now be on its implementation to protect smallholder farmers. “The EUDR is here, and there’s nothing we can do to revise it. Our task is to ensure smallholders don’t suffer,” she stated. Indonesia is urging the European Commission to provide additional support to help farmers adapt to these new requirements. Febriani Sumbung, a cocoa farmer from West Papua leading a cooperative of 170 producers, highlighted the high costs of compliance. She noted that mapping geolocation polygons to verify product origins recently cost thousands of dollars, yet not all farmers in her cooperative were covered. Such expenses could ...