EU’s deforestation rule could derail Liberia’s cocoa trade

Liberia's Grand Gedeh county saw cocoa-driven deforestation surge after 2020, right as the EU prepares to enforce a regulation banning imports of forest products grown on land cleared after December 31, 2020. The EU imported over 17,000 metric tons of Liberian cocoa in 2024, a 30% jump in two years, making it Liberia's largest cocoa customer.

The problem is structural: 99% of Grand Gedeh was forested before 2020, and most plantations sit deep inside forest that has since been cleared, some inside a proposed national park where farming is already banned. Liberia has no traceability system comparable to Côte d'Ivoire or Ghana, which took years to build theirs, leaving producers unable to prove compliance even if they wanted to.

A cocoa-buying collective secretary told Mongabay he understands forests are vanishing but doesn't grasp why the EU would want to hurt his business — a fair question given nobody appears to have told him about the regulation before now. A German MEP acknowledged farmer frustration while insisting clear-cutting still breaches the law, which is true and also not cocoa on a truck.

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