Mars Backs Climate-Smart Rice to Secure Supply Resilience

Partnering with rice producers, Mars is helping to implement sustainable farming practices that reduce environmental impact while strengthening supply chain resilience.

Highlighted at the 'In Focus' Zones at the Somerset House exhibition in early 2025, "SOIL: The World at Our Feet" explores the connection between soil, human life and the planet's future.

During the exhibition, Mars showcased its vital work alongside farmers to adopt a climate-smart and regenerative agriculture practice across the globe.

For the Food and Nutrition segment at the company, the focus is on making rice farming more sustainable.

Alastair Child, Mars Chief Sustainability Officer, says: "We're firmly committed not just to targets in a distant future but to delivering progress now. In order to do this, societal impact goals have to be built into business decision making.

"And to continue to deliver progress consistently, we need systemic change across our supply chains, with governments, industry and farmers all playing a role. We know we can't do this alone and so we want to bring our partners and peers along, as only large-scale change will deliver on our collective goals."

The global rice challenge

This kind of initiative is vital for a leader in the food-related sectors like Mars because of the vital role rice plays in the world's diet and economic prosperity.

As well as being a daily staple for 3.5 billion people globally, it helps provide income to around 19% of the world's population.

However, traditional rice production uses approximately 40% of the world's irrigation water and accounts for up to 10% of global methane emissions.

Mars is also the owner of one of the world's biggest and most recognised brands of rice – Ben's Original – so the product is a critical raw material for the company's food and nutrition segment, meaning there's a responsibility to dedicated time and effort to more sustainable sourcing practices.

Thailand: a climate smart success story

With the pressure of climate change accelerating rapidly, additional challenges are being placed on food crops.

In Thailand, rice is the most important food crop, making up around half of the nation's agricultural land.

However, farmers in the country are extremely vulnerable to climate change because yields are heavily dependent on weather conditions.

When the country faced drought in 2019, yields in the second growing season declined by 54%, leading to a fall in exports by almost one-third.

A projected temperature increase of up to 2°C by 2059 will reduce rice yields in Thailand by 17-20% if there are no changes to current farming practices.

The food and nutrition segment is focused on making rice farming more sustainable through the reduction of the amount of irrigation water used, bringing down greenhouse gas emissions and aiding farmers to keep or even increase their yields.

In 2018, Mars and the German agency for international cooperation GIZ, alongside other key partners, joined forces to develop a collective approach to sustainable climate-smart rice production in Thailand, launching the Sustainable Aromatic Rice Initiative.

This programme looks to train farmers on Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) standards for sustainable rice cultivation, including the use of digital farming solutions, record keeping, water management practices such as alternate wetting and drying and the efficient use of farming inputs.

Through this six-year programme, 1,450 farmers across two provinces – Roi Et and Central Plain – in Thailand, 70% of whom were women, have been taught sustainable rice production techniques aligned to the SRP standard.

For rice farmer Jularak, the programme has resulted in increased yields and income for her family.

She says: "My dream is to inspire more women to follow in my footsteps and contribute to the agriculture sector. With the income from increasing yields, I can support my children with better health and education. I encourage them to also embrace rice farming and secure a prosperous future for themselves."

Jularak is not alone. The programme which concluded in June 2024 has delivered impactful results for the 1,450 participating farmers who have seen:

Increased Rice Production: 43% in Roi Et & 10% in Central Plain
Water Reduction: 56% in Roi Et & 41% in Central Plain

The programme is now being scaled across the rice sector in Thailand.