Rice cultivation and processing: Highlights from a life cycle thinking perspective

The agri-food sector needs both water and energy and it also contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; among the various activities within this sector, rice production has a particularly significant impact on the environment. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one of the widely used approaches for evaluating the environmental impacts of a product, and as such, it is useful for examining the impacts of the rice industry. In recent years, LCA has been increasingly utilized to provide detailed insight into rice production processes. This review focuses on the application of LCA in rice production. Rice LCA studies were gathered in Scopus®. A total of 76 papers were examined up to the end of 2022. Most studies have evaluated the environmental impact of rice production and identified problem areas and opportunities for improvement. But there is a discrepancy in inputs considered, multifunctionality, emissions estimation and use of FU, which makes it challenging to compare LCA results, while some key aspects such as loss of biodiversity and variation of soil organic carbon and fertility are often not considered or roughly modelled. Only a small number (13 studies) evaluated economic consequences and investigated the impact of rice production on biodiversity (4 studies), indicating a stronger focus on environmental rather than socioeconomic aspects and limitations in evaluating certain environmental effects such as biodiversity and soil fertility.