Jon Trask, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Dimitra, speaks to NewsGhana about the EUDR threat, the KAHAWA+ programme, and why digitisation is now essential for Africa’s smallholder farmers.
Kenya is one of the world’s most celebrated coffee origins, yet beneath its strong export performance lies a sector under acute structural pressure. Approximately 95 percent of Kenya’s coffee is exported, with more than half destined for the European Union (EU). With declining soil fertility compressing yields and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) set to impose strict traceability requirements before year-end, over one million smallholder farmers face the real possibility of losing market access they have built over generations.
Jon Trask, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of agricultural technology company Dimitra, is working to prevent that outcome. Through the KAHAWA+ programme, a nationwide initiative run in partnership with the National Coffee Cooperative Union (NACCU), Dimitra is rolling out artificial intelligence (AI) driven precision agriculture tools and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) tracking software across Kenya’s entire cooperative network, targeting over 90 percent farmer registration by the end of 2026. NewsGhana spoke to Trask about what is driving the crisis, what technology can do about it, and what the rest of Africa can learn.
The contradiction at the heart of Kenya’s coffee sector
Strong export values are masking deep structural problems, Trask argues. Soil fertility is declining across many producing regions, directly reducing yields and threatening long-term productivity. At the same time, EUDR is introducing documentary compliance requirements that few smallholders can currently meet, creating a cliff-edge moment for a sector that has never had to prove its supply chain provenance at this level of detail. For farmers already operating without financial buffers, the convergence of yield pressure and regulatory uncertainty is compressing margins toward breaking point.
A regulatory shift that goes far beyond paperwork
Trask frames EUDR not as a bureaucratic inconvenience but as a permanent realignment of how global buyers define competitiveness. EU buyers now expect documented proof of origin, deforestation compliance, and measurable ESG indicators. Exporters who cannot provide verified data will not simply lose premium pricing; they will lose access entirely. This means Africa’s coffee supply chains must digitise their entire farm-to-port data infrastructure, moving from informal record-keeping to systems that generate export-ready documentation automatically.
What smallholders stand to lose
Trask is direct about the equity dimension. Larger, better-resourced cooperatives will adapt more quickly, widening the gap between them and smaller producers. Farmers who cannot finance the systems and training required for compliance may find themselves excluded from formal EU markets altogether and pushed toward informal buyers offering lower prices, eroding profitability and removing the capital needed to reinvest in farm improvements. Without structured support, the regulatory shift risks accelerating inequality rather than raising the floor.
What digital tools actually change on the ground
The Connected Coffee platform, Dimitra’s core tool for the KAHAWA+ rollout, delivers soil mapping, nutrient analysis, and crop monitoring directly to farmers’ mobile phones, including in offline mode for remote areas. The practical effect is more precise fertiliser application, earlier detection of yield problems, and healthier soils that produce more consistent harvests with fewer costly inputs over time. Sustainability, in this framework, is not a cost; it is a route to income stability.
AI as a practical risk management tool
Trask describes AI as the layer that converts raw farm data into actionable decisions. AI analyses soil conditions, weather patterns, and crop health reports to generate simple, farm-specific recommendations that farmers can act on immediately, whether adjusting input timing ahead of an expected dry spell, responding to early signs of disease, or identifying optimal harvest windows. As climate volatility intensifies across East Africa, data-driven decision-making is shifting from a competitive advantage to a basic requirement for survival.
Traceability as a pricing tool
A key point in Trask’s argument is that traceability creates pricing power, not just regulatory safety. When farmers can prove sustainable practices, quality metrics, and clean sourcing, they differentiate their coffee among buyers competing for verified supply. “Digital traceability transforms ESG performance from a cost burden into a market advantage by protecting export access while positioning their coffee for higher-value contracts,” Trask said.
Lessons from KAHAWA+ for the rest of Africa
The programme’s most replicable lesson, Trask says, is that digitisation only works when it is locally embedded. Technology delivered through trusted cooperatives and aligned with national institutions, supported by hands-on farmer training, produces uptake that isolated pilots cannot achieve. The programme has trained 11 digital champions so far, with each averaging 10 farmer registrations per day using the Connected Coffee app’s offline capability. Dimitra has applied a similar cooperative-led approach in Brazil and Indonesia, demonstrating that the model works across different agricultural contexts.
The bigger structural picture
Trask’s prescription for resilient agricultural value chains centres on aligned incentives: governments setting regulatory frameworks, technology companies supplying the infrastructure, and cooperatives acting as the bridge between policy and practice. Interoperability and shared data standards are the connective tissue. Resilience stops being reactive and becomes structural only when systems connect from farm-level inputs all the way to export documentation.
The deadline is real. EUDR compliance requirements for coffee exports take effect by the end of 2026. For Kenya’s one million smallholder farmers, the question is whether the digital infrastructure will arrive in time.
