By Lorrie Baumann

Jasberry® rice, a rice with antioxidant power that’s 40 times higher than brown rice, three times higher than blueberries, four times higher than quinoa and seven times higher than kale, is coming to America with a mission to lift Thai farmers out of poverty.

Peetachai (Neil) Dejkraisak co-founded Jasberry with a commitment to helping others that started when he was a boy growing up in Thailand and Australia, where he lived on a farm while attending school. “Growing up, I didn’t want to be rich or famous; I just wanted to make a difference,” he said. I was really motivated by people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela.”

That dream faded a bit as he began a career as an investment banker after he finished school in Australia and returned home to Thailand, but it came roaring back when he got an alumni newsletter that had a photo of one of his high school friends who had shared that dream of helping others as they were youths. In his friend’s case, that dream had expressed itself as a vision of starting a school of Africa. “The newsletter had a picture of him surrounded by his African students,” Dejkraisak said. “The next day I quit my job.”

That started a search for how Dejkraisak was going to make his difference in the world and particularly in Thailand. He recognized that Thailand is one of the world’s top exporters of rice, exporting about a quarter of the world’s total rice exports, but that Thai farmers were among the poorest in the world. Of the 70 million people in the country, about a quarter of them are farmers who don’t participate in the prosperity that visitors to the country see when they visit Bangkok. “When I started to learn about this issue, I got really curious about it,” Dejkraisak said.

He started looking for ways to change that situation. He learned about Fair Trade. He thought about the premium prices that buyers are willing to pay for organic products. “I realized that the solution had to be more sustainable,” he said. “You have to teach them how to fish. If I just purchased their produce, I’m just giving them fish.”

The Thai farmers already knew how to grow rice, but they were dependent on agricultural chemicals to produce a crop that they could only sell as a commodity. What they didn’t know was that there could be another way for them to grow rice. “If they converted from chemical farming to organic, that in itself would help them be healthier…. They’d have a better life, and it would be better for the environment,” Dejkraisak said. “Then if they were growing organic rice, they’d get a small premium on their price, but at the same time, it’s still a very competitive market.”
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Getting them more than the small premium they could get for organic rice would mean finding a new kind of rice that would be something better than a commodity, so Dejkraisak went looking for a scientist who knew how to breed a better rice. He found that scientist at a University in Thailand, and the result of his experiments on the problem was a non-GMO rice, naturally produced by cross-breeding existing varieties, that had the characteristics of a superfood, a delicious flavor and a glycemic index that was similar to basmati rice. “It was something in the lab, and we had to bring it to the real world,” Dejkraisak said.

The next step was to introduce the rice to Thai farmers, who had to be persuaded to take a risk with a new crop. Dejkraisak asked them to pilot test the new rice on a small part of their land and offered to give them the seed and organic fertilizer for free, to train them in organic farming methods and to buy the crop from them at double the price they were getting for their commodity rice. “I said, ‘Hey, let me take the risk. If I cannot sell it, I’ll buy it from you, and that’s my problem,’” he said.

That first year’s crop was small, but the results were encouraging enough for Dejkraisak and the farmers to continue on their path, particularly because part of Dejkraisak’s deal with the farmers was that they kept a quarter of their crop for their families’ consumption, and they’d noticed that they were healthier than usual. “The next year they were able to grow it better, so the yield was much better,” Dejkraisak said. “They decided to believe that this rice was like a medicine. Other farmers joined the program because they wanted to eat the rice.”

Seven years ago, the Jasberry project started with 25 farmer families; now the program has grown to 2,500 families, a total of more than 10,000 people. The farmers are certified organic growers, and Jasberry is now set up as Thailand’s first food-producing B Corporation with a product that’s ready for the American market. “You can run a business that has a social mission at its core but that is still sustainable,” Dejkraisak said. “We’re also trying to show the business world that you can do business this way and still make a living. If you support this kind of business, you can make a real difference in the world; you can make a change.”

Now Dejkraisak’s mission is to educate American consumers about the value of the rice. “What we are trying to do in the U.S. market is to change the perception of the consumer,” Dejkraisak said. “The superfood concept is something that consumers are familiar with.”

“A lot of people have the perception that rice is just carbohydrates, but Jasberry rice has the antioxidants and vitamins and minerals that provide a nutritional benefit for the consumer. More and more consumers are going to benefit from this product,” Dejkraisak said. “If more and more consumers eat Jasberry rice and benefit from this, more farmers will benefit.”