The newly developed tool for calculating Carbon Footprints of Rice (CF-Rice) aims at streamlining information exchange on carbon footprints of rice products among research, policy makers, food industry and consumers. In contrast to commercially available C-Footprint calculators, CF-Rice is freely accessible and incorporates a set of calculation routines and technological default values tailored for the rice value chain. Moreover, the tool facilitates the use of own data, e.g. new Emission Factors at field level or for advanced technologies. 

The Excel-based CF-Rice tool encompasses a spreadsheet model with a Graphics User Interface (GUI) tailored for calculating C-Footprints of rice products. As initial input, CF-Rice requires data on paddy yield as well as information on crop management, so that C-Footprints can be calculated based on IPCC equations. CF-Rice also requires information on harvest and post-harvest procedures that are then considered with empirical values on emissions as well as efficiencies in grain losses to compute the overall C-Footprint at the product level. The tool is also available for use as a web-based version.

The design of the tool facilitates parallel assessments of C-Footprints under product-specific settings as well as technological alternatives for conventional and mitigation-conform rice production. At the same time, the user has the option of adding other empirical values to the defaults embedded in CF-Rice. Assuming that the calculation will be done for a larger number of rice producers, the download encompasses a questionnaire to be distributed to farmers and service providers.