Brazil to adopt platform to meet EU deforestation law requirements

Brazil’s foreign trade chamber, Camex, is expected this week to designate the Agro Brasil + Sustentável platform, known as AB+S, as the federal government’s official mechanism for Brazil EUDR compliance, as exporters prepare for the European Union’s new deforestation rules.

The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is designed to block access to the European market for seven commodities — soybeans, beef, coffee, wood, palm oil, rubber and cocoa — as well as some derived products, including leather, chocolate, tires and furniture, if they are produced in areas deforested after the end of 2020.

According to data compiled by Datamar, a large share of Brazil’s export basket to the European Union will be affected by the new legislation. Soybean shipments, for example, account for 21.34% of the total volume exported. The chart below shows the share of the other products:

Top Products Exported to the European Union | H1 2026 | WTMT

Source: DataLiner (click here to request a demo)

Unless the regulation is postponed again, the restrictions will begin applying on December 30, 2026. The rules could affect about one-third of Brazilian sales to the EU, representing roughly $17 billion a year.

After two years of work to align positions, gather data and organize the mechanism, Brazil wants to show it has done its homework and avoid a crisis similar to the current dispute over antimicrobial use. In that case, Brussels said it would block, starting Thursday, September 3, Brazilian beef, poultry, horse meat, fish, honey, eggs and related products from entering the EU market for failing to meet requirements set unilaterally by Europe.

What the EU deforestation law requires

The EUDR creates new requirements for certain products entering the European market. Its stated goal is to ensure that goods consumed in the European Union meet two broad conditions.

First, products must comply with the relevant laws of the country where they were produced. That includes requirements related to the production area, land-use rights, environmental protection, forest and biodiversity conservation, labor conditions, human rights, Indigenous peoples’ rights, and tax, commercial and customs compliance.

Second, products must not come from land deforested after December 31, 2020. In Brazil’s case, this requirement applies even if the deforestation was legal under Brazilian law. For wood products, the rules also include requirements related to forest degradation.

The obligations will apply from December 30, 2026, for large importers and operators, and from June 30, 2027, for small and medium-sized importers.

As a result, companies importing Brazilian coffee, soybeans, beef, cocoa, rubber, wood and palm oil into the EU will need to receive socioenvironmental documentation from sellers showing that no deforestation occurred after 2020.

The importer or operator responsible in the European Union will have to submit a due diligence statement with information on the imported product and its compliance with the EUDR. That includes proof of origin, identification of the rural property or production unit, geographic coordinates of the production area, evidence that no deforestation occurred after December 31, 2020, and records showing compliance with relevant labor, tax and commercial obligations.

In practice, European importers will need access to data from Brazilian producers or exporters on origin, legality and deforestation-free production. Brazilian exporters, in turn, will have to provide documentary proof that their production was not linked to deforestation before they can sell into the EU’s 27 member states.

AB+S platform to support exporters

To help Brazilian exporters demonstrate compliance with the European requirements, a Camex resolution endorsed by Brazil’s vice president is expected to establish the Agro Brasil + Sustentável platform this week.

The system is the result of a collective effort by the federal government. It involved the 10 ministries that regularly sit on Camex — foreign affairs, development and trade, the president’s chief-of-staff office, finance, agriculture, planning, management, defense, mines and energy, and agrarian development — as well as the ministries of environment, Indigenous peoples, labor, and science and technology.

Private-sector groups most directly affected by the European measures were also consulted, including Abiove for soybeans, Abiec for beef, Cecafé for coffee, Abrapalma for palm oil and AIPC for cocoa.

The report generated by the platform will be an attestation by the Brazilian government as a whole, not only by the Agriculture Ministry. That gives it greater political weight.

According to a government source, AB+S is designed to cross-reference several official databases in a transparent and reliable way. The platform consolidates, organizes and makes available information on the environmental, social and corporate governance of rural properties and their products, allowing exporters to meet several of the requirements under the EU deforestation law.

By accessing the free platform, Brazilian producers will be able to generate a Socioenvironmental Analysis Report for Export Operations, known by its Portuguese acronym RASOE. The document may be used by European operators as supporting material when preparing their due diligence reports.

The final details of the report were settled between Chief of Staff Minister Miriam Belchior and Environment Minister João Paulo Ribeiro Capobianco.

If the platform identifies, for example, that a soybean producer is accused of using slave labor or producing on officially recognized Indigenous land, the producer will not be authorized to export.

The government expects Brazilian producers to also be able to use complementary information, such as private certifications, audit reports, satellite images, maps, contracts with specific clauses and proof of periodic inspections.

“We are working so that our exporters are prepared to respond to EUDR requirements,” said Ambassador Felipe Hees, director of the economic department at Brazil’s Foreign Ministry.

The assessment in Brasília is that clear, consistent and verifiable information will be essential to ensuring continued sales of Brazilian products to the European market.

Brazil to present platform abroad

After Camex establishes the Agro Brasil + Sustentável platform this week, the government will take the system abroad.

In the second half of September, a delegation of technical staff from several ministries and representatives of the private sector is expected to hold a roadshow in Rome, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Brussels. The goal will be to explain the platform and reiterate that Brazil will be ready when the EU deforestation law begins to apply.

In early November, after Brazil’s elections, the platform is expected to be officially presented to the public at a ceremony in Brasília.

In the government’s view, the mechanism is sufficient to meet European demands. One source said some European authorities have already informally acknowledged that no other country is preparing a response to the deforestation law at the same level as Brazil.

In neighboring Argentina, for example, reports indicate that a trade association will be responsible for saying whether an exporter is able to sell to Europe. In that model, the private sector gives the green light to one of its members, while the government accepts the arrangement. The question is how far Europe will be willing to accept that approach.

Brazil remains under EU scrutiny

The European Commission placed Brazil on its list of countries with “standard risk” of deforestation, along with 49 other countries. There was clear relief in Brazil that the country was not classified as “high risk,” especially because some observers see the EUDR and its product selection as having been aimed largely at Brazil.

Even so, the deforestation law and the risk classification will keep Brazil under permanent pressure from Europe. Brussels could later use the regulation to question the expansion of production in certain areas, for example by revising a country or product’s risk classification and arguing that some goods carry a higher deforestation risk.

The risk classification determines how much compliance checking EU member states must carry out. Authorities will have to inspect 9% of operators dealing with products from high-risk countries, 3% of products from standard-risk countries and 1% of products from countries considered low risk for deforestation.

In practical terms, the risk classification helps determine how many containers will be checked. Goods from higher-risk countries will face tighter controls and, as a result, a higher chance of penalties and reputational problems in the market.

For Brazil, the AB+S platform is an attempt to turn official data into a trade-access tool. The success of Brazil EUDR compliance will depend not only on the platform’s technical reliability, but also on whether European importers and regulators accept Brazilian documentation as sufficient proof of traceability, legality and deforestation-free production.

Source: A Tribuna

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