Carbon footprint becomes key in food trade, Thailand urged to adapt
Vietnam is marketing rice with carbon credits, but Thailand still lacks recognised carbon data and traceability, risking exclusion from premium export markets.
- The global food trade is shifting from price-based competition to a focus on carbon footprint, which is becoming a key deciding factor for international buyers.
- Thailand is falling behind competitors like Vietnam, which is already successfully marketing agricultural products, such as rice, bundled with carbon credits.
- Thailand's adaptation is hindered by a complex supply chain, a lack of financial incentives for farmers, and the absence of a coordinated national government policy on carbon management.
- Industry leaders warn that if Thailand fails to establish a national agenda for carbon certification, its agricultural exports could face significant trade barriers within two years.
Thailand’s agriculture and food sector is entering a major turning point: price is no longer the deciding factor for buyers.
Instead, carbon footprint is fast becoming the new benchmark.
Vietnam is already moving aggressively, marketing “green” products and leapfrogging competitors, while Thailand remains stuck in an old structural trap, short on funding, short on coordination, and lacking an integrated national push.
Industry voices are urging the next government to elevate this as a national agenda before Thai exports face long-term trade barriers.
A new paradigm where profit is no longer measured by “price”
Pornsil Patcharintanakul, president of the Thai Feed Mill Association, said at the 2025 annual meeting of Thailand’s Network for Sustainable Production and Consumption that Thai agricultural success used to be judged by volume and price; whoever sold cheaper and delivered more “won”.
But today the global trade landscape has fundamentally changed.
Environmental factors, especially greenhouse-gas emissions, have become a key condition shaping purchase decisions by major global buyers.
A stark “wake-up call” came from Thailand’s rice deal with Singapore. Thailand successfully signed a five-year contract to supply 100,000 tonnes of rice.
Yet just three days later, Vietnam shook the market by offering rice bundled with carbon credits, shifting the focus away from tonnes and unit prices.
The message was clear: Thailand’s competitors have already crossed from traditional trade into a low-carbon economy model.
In the near future, global buyers will not ask, “How much does Thai rice cost?” They will ask, “How much carbon is in this bag of rice?” If Thailand cannot answer, premium markets could shut their doors immediately.
A long supply chain: a strength that is becoming a vulnerability
Thailand’s agriculture and food industry is complex, with a long supply chain, from upstream inputs such as seeds (rice, maize, cassava), to midstream drying facilities and feed mills, and downstream livestock, processing, and export production.
That complexity makes “carbon management” difficult because every link is connected.
The toughest challenge sits upstream with smallholder farmers.
When the private sector pushes for changes such as banning burning or reducing chemical fertiliser use to cut emissions, farmers often respond with a blunt question: “How many more baht per kilogram will you pay?”
This is not selfishness; it is about livelihoods and the lack of economic incentives.
Old-style solutions, forcing compliance through laws or penalties, will not work.
What is needed is a way to create a real “edge”: higher returns for producing in an environmentally friendly way.
The only way forward: technology and verifiable data
The core battlefield in the carbon era is credible data.
Thailand cannot claim its rice is low-carbon with vague promises.
It needs accurate traceability systems and internationally accepted measurements.
Right now, the private sector is largely struggling on its own, such as partnering with King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi to spend two years collecting field data to verify the carbon footprint of five million tonnes of maize.
Building the required technology and big-data infrastructure demands enormous investment, far beyond the capacity of small farmers and mid-sized businesses.
This is where innovation must replace manual processes, producing numbers the world will trust.
The missing player: government leadership
Even as businesses begin to adapt, the biggest obstacle is the absence of a clear policy “owner.
More than ten ministries have a stake, Agriculture, Commerce, Industry, Natural Resources and Environment, and others, yet each works separately.
There are policies at the department or ministry level, but no integrated national policy tying everything together.
This policy vacuum causes three major problems:
- Budgets don’t align: Without a national master plan, there is no coherent funding framework to support technology adoption by farmers.
- Standards are confusing: Farmers do not know which standards to follow, slowing adaptation and costing opportunities.
- Low bargaining power: In global negotiations, without the government leading, Thai businesses risk being squeezed by unilateral trade measures.
Two years before the “time bomb” goes off
Stakeholders warn that Thailand is heading towards a dead end.
If the current government fails to set a serious national agenda on carbon footprint soon, the consequences could hit within two years.
By then, Thai agricultural exports, especially rice, may be locked out of key global markets, not because Thailand lacks supply or is too expensive, but because it lacks the carbon certification that buyers increasingly require.
The future of millions of Thai farming households may depend on whether the government chooses to lead now or lets the system unravel on its own.
