Life Cycle Assessment of Thai Hom Mali Rice to Support the Policy Decision on Organic Farming Area Expansion

Abstract

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.

Carbon, Nitrogen and Water Footprints of Organic Rice and Conventional Rice Production over 4 Years of Cultivation: A Case Study in the Lower North of Thailand

“…Yodkhum et al [95] calculated the CF of conventional rice farming in the Maerim District, Chiang Mai province, Northern Thailand, and found 0.64 kg CO2eq kg −1 rice yield. Mungkung et al [96] found that the CF of Hom Mali organic rice production in the Surin province, Northeast Thailand was 2.88 kg CO2eq kg −1 rice yield. When comparing the present study with the above studies, the different CF values are mainly due to the different amounts of agricultural inputs, methods, and parameters for the life cycle assessment (LCA) calculation, and none of the above studies considered SOC stocks.…”

Organic food has lower environmental impacts per area unit and similar climate impacts per mass unit compared to conventional

“…Of the organic LCA studies only two papers 37,38 and of comparative studies only six papers [39][40][41][42][43][44] included SOC in their assessment. Some other studies considered emissions from dLUC [45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52] .…”

“…For this reason, few studies on biodiversity impacts of agricultural production systems were available (Table 4). Of the four LCA studies that included BI of food products, two studies 47,52 focused on organic milk and rice production systems, respectively, and the two others reported on both organic and conventional milk production systems (Tables 2, 4).…”

Integrated emergy and economic evaluation of the dominant organic rice production systems in Jiangsu province, China

“…According to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), by 2030, the global agricultural system is supposed to make sustainable food production accessible to all people (Arunrat et al, 2021). Organic rice cultivation is encouraged owing to it is expected to lower risks from eliminating chemical inputs and reduce environmental impacts, including ecosystem degradation and global warming (Mungkung et al, 2020). It has been reported that the demand for organic rice in the international market is increasing and supposed to continue growing (Declaro-Ruedas, 2019).…”