Thailand has a strategic national policy to increase organic rice farming. This study firstly applied Life Cycle Assessment for evaluating the quantitative environmental impacts at the regional and national levels to facilitate the national policy decision on the expansion of organic rice cultivation areas. The impact categories of interest included global warming, terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, terrestrial ecotoxicity, and freshwater ecotoxicity, and the life cycle impact assessment method applied was ReCiPe. The results showed that the life cycle environmental impacts from organic rice cultivation in the nine provinces in the North were lower than those from the 12 provinces in the Northeast, due mainly to the higher yields and lower use of fertilizers in the former. The methane emissions in the North (11,147 kg CO2e/ha) were similar to those in the Northeast (11,378 kg CO2e/ha). However, nitrous oxide emissions in the Northeast were higher than in the North due to the higher amounts of fertilizer used. If Thailand expands the rice farming by 50% in the North and by 50% in the Northeast, the greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced from 11,400 to 11,100 kg CO2e/ha, but the impacts of terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, terrestrial ecotoxicity, and freshwater ecotoxicity could be increased by 0.0257 kg PO4e (95%), 0.508 kg 1,4-DBe (53%), and 33.1 kg 1,4-DBe (17%), respectively. To reduce the global warming as well as other environmental impacts, Thailand should expand rice farming areas to the North. This information could be useful for supporting the policy decisions on which areas the organic rice farming should be expanded in to minimize the potential life cycle environmental impacts.

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Riceberry rice has a special characteristic of being specially bred with high nutrients. High-value added products from riceberry are being promoted targeting health-conscious consumers. To provide supporting information for sustainable food systems, environmental footprinting was applied for evaluating the environmental performance of a ready-to-eat product of riceberry rice mixed with kidney red bean called “Riceberry + KU”, developed by Kasetsart University in Thailand. Based on sold unit as the unit of analysis, the carbon footprint of Riceberry + KU was 5.24 gCO2e per 300 g. Interestingly, white rice had the highest carbon footprint and riceberry rice as well as the riceberry product had at least 30% lower values. However, using nutrient-based scores, although white rice still had the highest carbon footprint, Riceberry + KU had 80% lower and the riceberry rice had 65% lower values. This resulted from the highest nutritional levels found in Riceberry + KU along with the lower greenhouse gas emissions from riceberry field during the cultivation stage. Similar trends were found in the other impact categories assessed by using life cycle assessment as well. To provide appropriate information to consumers for making more sustainable food choices, the environmental performance based on nutrient quality resulting from different farming systems and processing methods should be used to derive recommendations for moving toward sustainable food systems. The nutrition-environment nexus assessment could be very useful for supporting consumers toward making more sustainable food choices.

A meat-free diet and the aging society cause some of the health problems. One of that was the deficiency of some essential amino acid in the diets. Riceberry has recently been developed in Thailand. This new variety of colored rice has a dark purple seed coat containing anthocyanin which acts as an antioxidant. Similar to normal rice, riceberry lacks lysine which plays an important role in maintaining body systems through hormone release and muscle mass maintenance. To enrich ready-to-eat rice products, red bean was added as a natural amino acid source. This formulated product had higher protein and ash content, while energy, fat and carbohydrate content were not different from the control. The essential amino acid profile of the product was complete and product shelf life was 6 months with an unchanged texture. Anthocyanin and antioxidant capacity of the product decreased with storage time. This product suited a wide range of consumers and was convenient for modern lifestyles that demand healthy, ready-to-eat foodstuffs.