Fixing Mapping Errors in Smallholder Coffee Farms: A New Dataset for Transparency and Compliance
The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is about to kick into high gear, but a critical flaw threatens to cut hundreds of thousands of smallholder coffee farmers out of the European market. A new open-access dataset called Sample Earth aims to rectify this issue by helping mapmakers accurately classify smallholder farms instead of mislabeling them as forests. Launched last week by the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Sample Earth is a reference dataset designed to improve map accuracy in deforestation due diligence. The groups behind this initiative say that inaccurate mapping could lead to…