International Researchers Allege Widespread Errors in Smallholder Coffee Mapping, Offer Dataset

"A new open-access dataset called Sample Earth aims to fix what its creators call a critical flaw in the global coffee and cocoa trade: maps that label current smallholder farms 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 help mapmakers stop misclassifying potentially hundreds of thousands of smallholder coffee and cacao farms as forest land. The distinction is timely as the Dec. 30 enforcement date for the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) looms. The law will require European companies to ensure certain agricultural goods are not linked to specific instances of deforestation."

"According to the groups behind Sample Earth, inaccurate mapping could cut hundreds of thousands of coffee and cocoa farmers out of the European market as EUDR kicks in. They said the reference dataset, hosted at the Harvard Dataverse, draws on more than two decades of Alliance research using satellite imagery to monitor land-cover changes across the Global South."

""Most maps are not accurate at local scales because the data is biased toward regions with a lot of training data," Thibaud Vantalon, a scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International said in an announcement from the group. "Remote regions are very poorly mapped. Sample Earth means to fill this gap in training data for smallholders.""

Sample Earth is an open-access reference dataset created to prevent misclassification of active smallholder coffee and cacao farms as forests. The dataset is hosted at the Harvard Dataverse and builds on more than two decades of Alliance research using satellite imagery to monitor land-cover changes across the Global South. The dataset supplies training data to improve local-scale map accuracy and to reduce bias toward well-sampled regions. Built-in mechanisms allow mapmakers to access confidential land-use information without exposing individual farmer locations. The dataset aims to support compliance with the European Union Deforestation Regulation by clarifying land-cover status for supply-chain due diligence and to set a transparency benchmark for map-based compliance.

Read at Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine