Nigeria and Cameroon, two of Africa’s largest cocoa producers are making significant progress (though separately) in cocoa traceability index as the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) ban draws nearer. By December 31, 2026, the bloc stops buying cocoa beans from any country or region, without proof of geolocation and absence of deforestation.
In particular, Cameroon’s National Cocoa and Coffee Board (ONCC) advances its cocoa traceability index with a new three-year memorandum signed with Germany’s Cooko, a company which specialises in post-harvest cocoa fermentation and digital traceability.
On its part, Nigeria makes structural and technical strides toward establishing its National Traceability System (NTS), a momentum heavily driven by the need to comply with the EUDR, which applies to large operators by December 31, 2026.
The EU absorbs roughly 60-70 percent of Nigeria’s cocoa exports, building an airtight traceability index is vital to safeguarding a €1.5 billion market.
Nigeria’s progress is defined by the National Traceability Architecture, satellite & digital mapping under a crucial memorandum of understanding (MoU), in which the federal ministry of agriculture and food security partners with the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA).
 Cameroon’s traceability agreement was signed in the country’s commercial capital Douala for a new three-year period, replacing an earlier one signed in September 2021.
However, the announcement provided no figures on the results of the first phase; and failed to set any numerical targets for the next three years.
The agreement was signed by ONCC director general Michael Ndoping and Cooko Country director Epanty Mbanda. According to a statement published by ONCC, it covers cocoa quality, research, data infrastructure, producer incomes, agricultural entrepreneurship and public policy. So-called first-mile traceability is expected to include farm mapping, geospatial monitoring, harvest registration and auditable transaction records.
ONCC did not publish the full agreement. It is unclear whether it includes a budget, funding sources, interim deadlines and/or performance indicators. ONCC did not also publish the number of producers and plots registered since 2021, the total area covered by geolocation data or the volume of cocoa actually tracked.
 For Nigeria, the country’s NASRDA provides high-resolution satellite imagery required to verify that cocoa plots have not caused forest degradation since the EU’s cutoff date of December 31, 2020.
The Nigerian government also launched an active NTS pilot program spanning five core cocoa-producing states: Cross River, Ondo, Ogun, Oyo and Osun. However other cocoa producing states include Ekiti, Akwa Ibom, and Edo.
Concurrently, the National Cocoa Management Committee (NCMC) has mandated that exporters register on the federal government’s National Single Window (NSW) portal to streamline digital chain-of-custody data.
There is also private sector aggression. Because public infrastructure is still catching up, major private agro-exporters are carrying out the heavy lifting on polygon mapping. For example, leading exporter Sunbeth Global Concepts mapped over 140,000 hectares of farmlands involving more than 30,000 smallholder farmers.
This footprint accounts for roughly 20 percent of Nigeria’s projected cocoa supply, serving as a blueprint for private-led compliance.These mapping operations are highly labor-intensive, relying on a vast network of field agents.
Private firms estimate the mapping cost at $30 to $80 per metric tonne, a financial burden that West African intermediaries are heavily absorbing.
On a regional alignment, the major cocoa producers: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon have instituted the “raw export ban” initiative. In July 2026, the four counties signed the Abuja Declaration, to form a unified front. The alliance aims to standardize traceability software, synchronize regional sustainability metrics, and demand that international buyers share the financial weight of these compliance systems.
Alongside traceability, Nigeria enacted a push to process at home: a strict policy shift to phase out the export of entirely raw cocoa beans. By pivoting toward locally refined cocoa liquor, cake, and butter, the country aims to centralize data tracking at industrial processing hubs rather than trying to map hundreds of thousands of isolated, fragmented smallholder plots.
Despite clear technological progress, industry experts warn that over 50 percent of Nigeria’s smallholder cocoa farms still risk being temporarily left behind. Many farms are deeply remote, under four hectares in size, and face infrastructural deficits that make real-time digital tracking difficult.
This has raised concerns about what cocoa sector experts called a “two-tiered” market emerging by 2027: high-value, traceable cocoa going to the EU, and unmapped, conventional cocoa being heavily discounted and routed to alternative markets.
Ndoping, Cameroon’s ONCC director-general also invited Germany’s Cooko to join the government’s sustainable cocoa platform (SCP). It is unclear whether data produced by the German company will be integrated into a Cameroon national system or made available to exporters.
Meanwhile, Cameroon is developing land-cover maps and models mapping cocoa-growing areas with the European Union and the FAO to facilitate deforestation-related checks. The first results of that national initiative were presented in November 2025, according to the FAO.
The partnership is expected to continue work already underway at Cooko’s research and fermentation center in Ntui, in Cameroon’s Centre Region. The company says freshly harvested beans are placed directly into sealed containers identified with RFID tags and then transported to Ntui for fermentation and drying. The system is intended to link each batch to its farm of origin and retain the data throughout post-harvest processing.
Available data do not show how significant the system is within Cameroon’s cocoa industry. In May 2025, Cooko chief executive Ferdinand van Heerden told specialist outlet, CocoaRadar that the company had capacity of 15 tonnes per month, and was targeting annual production of 300 tonnes.
If reached, that target would represent about 0.12 percent of the 247,914 tonnes of cocoa marketed in Cameroon during the 2025-2026 season. Cooko has not published the volume actually processed at Ntui during that season.
Cameroon’s cocoa exports are heavily concentrated in Europe. During the 2025-2026 season, Europe accounted for 84.62 percent of the country’s cocoa exports. Export volumes fell to 125,469 tonnes from 192,012 tonnes in the previous season, a decline of 34.65 percent, according to ONCC’s season review. That percentage, however, covers Europe, a broader geographic area than the European Union. It confirms the concentration of Cameroon’s cocoa exports in Europe without making it possible to determine precisely the share subject to the regulation.
The partnership is also expected to support research into the flavor characteristics of Cameroonian cocoa. ONCC’s statement refers to Cameroon’s recognition as a producer of fine or flavor cocoa under Annex C of the International Cocoa Agreement.
The country already has that recognition. The International Cocoa Council added Cameroon to Annex C of the 2010 Agreement through a decision adopted on April 26, 2024. The International Cocoa Organization says Cameroon exports fine or flavor cocoa, but its expert panel has not yet been able to determine what proportion of the country’s exports falls into that category. Ghana, Malaysia and Venezuela are in the same situation.
The new International Cocoa Agreement, adopted on February 13, 2026, retains that classification. It had not yet entered into force as of September 13, 2026, according to the International Cocoa Organization. Article 39 provides that Annex C and the proportions assigned to countries may be reviewed with the support of an expert panel.
Traceability has become increasingly important for access to the EU market as the European Union’s deforestation regulation takes effect. By December 31, 2026, large and medium-sized operators placing cocoa or cocoa-derived products on the EU market will have to show that their supplies do not come from land deforested after December 31, 2020. They will also have to establish that production complies with the laws of the country of origin and submit a due diligence statement. The deadline for most European micro and small enterprises is June 30, 2027, according to the European Commission.
The regulation places these obligations on operators and traders that place the products on the EU market. In practice, exporters in the producing countries such as Nigeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana, will have to provide those operators with plot coordinates, production periods and other information needed to verify the origin of the beans.
