Life Cycle Assessment of Thai organic Hom Mali rice to evaluate the climate change, water use and biodiversity impacts

Abstract Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Hom Mali organic rice production in Surin province, Thailand was performed to evaluate the potential environmental impacts. The scope of study was the farm gate and the functional unit was set as one kg of organic paddy rice. The inputs and outputs were collected from the farm's data recording including the measurement of water levels inside the rice field which was done over the production cycle along with methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Inventory analysis of fauna and flora before, during and after crop production was also performed. Carbon and water footprinting were based on the ISO methods, whereas the Swiss Agricultural LCA method was used for biodiversity impact assessment. The results revealed that the impact on climate change was 2.88 kgCO 2 eq per kg of paddy rice. The calculation of impact on water use with consideration of the water stress index of Mun watershed was 1.34 m 3 H 2 Oeq. The biodiversity impact assessment was found to be practical but largely dependent on the expertise and experience of the assessors. The results from this study have given the insights on how to anticipate the environmental product declaration for rice.