How Olam Food Ingredients is waging a digital fight against deforestation

Olam Food Ingredients (ofi), the Singapore-based agribusiness supplying cocoa, coffee, and other commodities from 2.75 million farmers, is deploying an integrated digital system to combat deforestation in its supply chains. The company has mapped 730,000 farms using in-field smartphone-based polygon mapping combined with satellite monitoring through Google Earth Engine and Global Forest Watch.

The system has reduced manual compliance needs by more than 70 percent since digitizing deforestation monitoring. Farmers work directly with ofi field staff to establish physical land boundaries via a smartphone-based Farmer Information System, and satellite data tracks forest cover changes within those mapped plots. The company has also planted 16.9 million beneficial trees, exceeding its target by roughly 2 million trees.

This effort is directly tied to the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which requires geolocation coordinates to six decimal places for commodity plots larger than four hectares. ofi aims to provide all relevant geolocation data and traceability documentation to its customers by the end of 2026. The company also co-founded the TRACT platform, an industry-wide sustainability data sharing tool with ADM, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus that raised 18.6 million euros in Series A funding. For the earth observation community, this case demonstrates how satellite monitoring and ground-level participatory mapping can work together at commercial scale to meet regulatory compliance requirements.