Every EUDR filing eventually reduces to the same question: where does the geometry come from? Plots over 4 hectares must be polygons, smaller plots need at least a point, and neither materialises on its own. There are five practical routes to plot geometry, usually combined across one supply chain. This guide walks each route and the validation that turns raw geometry into something you can actually file.
Route 1: ask for what already exists
Most plots that feed EU supply chains have been mapped by somebody. Certification schemes (Rainforest Alliance, FSC, RSPO) have collected farm geometry for years and have added EUDR-shaped data releases; traders and exporters run their own farm databases; national systems hold boundaries at scale, from Brazil's CAR registry (see soy and coffee from Brazil) to Ghana's cocoa mapping. The first move is always a data request per lot, in writing, named format. The recurring failure is receiving a certificate asserting that geometry exists instead of the geometry itself; insist on the file.
Route 2: walk the boundary
Where nothing exists, a person walks the plot perimeter with a phone or handheld GNSS receiver recording a track, which becomes the polygon. Rules of thumb: walk corners deliberately and pause at each so vertices land where the boundary turns; a vertex every few metres on straight runs is noise, not accuracy (and bloats files against TRACES limits); close the loop back at the starting corner. Consumer GPS accuracy of a few metres is fine for screening purposes. This scales surprisingly well through enumerator campaigns, covered in the smallholder guide.
Route 3: draw over imagery
Field boundaries visible in recent satellite imagery can be digitised directly: the supplier (or you, on a call with the farmer) traces the plot on a map tool and exports the shape. This is the cheapest route per plot and entirely legitimate; its weakness is recency and honesty of the basemap, so use current imagery and treat ambiguous boundaries (shade crops under canopy, new plantings) as candidates for a boundary walk instead. plotvera's plot editor exists for exactly this workflow: draw, validate, screen in one pass.
Route 4: cadastral and land-registry data
Where land administration is digitised, parcel boundaries can be exported from cadastral records, which has the advantage of matching the legal property. Two cautions: cadastral parcels describe ownership, not production, so a parcel containing 20 hectares of pasture and 5 of coffee overstates the plot; and registry coordinate systems are often national projections that need reprojection to WGS84 before use.
Route 5: convert what the supplier sends
Real supplier data arrives as KML from Google Earth, WKT strings from a database, shapefile exports from a GIS office, or coordinates pasted into spreadsheets. All are convertible; all corrupt in characteristic ways. Watch for: swapped latitude/longitude order (the classic spreadsheet error, landing farms in the ocean), projected coordinates mislabelled as degrees, styling junk carried over from KML, and precision loss from spreadsheet rounding. Convert everything into the TRACES GeoJSON profile as the single working format, keeping your own plot identifier on every feature.
Validation: the non-negotiable pass
Whatever the route, geometry goes through the same checks before it is filing-grade, because TRACES enforces some rules and silently mangles other defects:
- Coordinates in WGS84 decimal degrees, within valid ranges, six decimal places.
- Rings closed (first vertex equals last), at least four positions, no self-intersections, no holes.
- No duplicate consecutive vertices after rounding to six decimals.
- Computed area plausible against the declared farm size; a 40-hectare polygon for a declared 4-hectare farm means one of them is wrong.
- Geometry type matched to size: polygon above 4 hectares (except cattle establishments), point or polygon below.
- No absurdities: plots at (0,0), in the sea, or overlapping each other within the same file.
The rules and their legal basis are itemised in the geolocation requirements guide. Once valid, screen the geometry against the 2020 cutoff and keep every version you ever received in the evidence file: when a boundary gets corrected, the screening verdict attached to the old shape is part of your history, not waste.