With the growing concern about food security in the northern uplands of Laos, it is critical to address the issue of sustainable intensification of food production. The objective of the study was to characterize the variability in rice cropping practices and to evaluate their performance and sustainability in Lao PDR. One, name d Sustainable Rice System (SRS), was promoted by a national NGO as an adaptation of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) to the local agro-ecological conditions. This innovation was compared to traditional rice growing practices in the study area in Kham Di strict, Xieng Khouang Province. The study has enabled actors to better understand the real diversity of practices. We found a distinct ion between single seedling and multiple seedling transplanting practices. Then, focusing on single seedling transplanting (referred as SRS), the study demonstrated that despite no signify cant yield increase, farmers are interested in adopting it because it provides other benefits. These are notably the increase in the return on labor (57.8%) and savings on the global labor requirement (28.4%). As labor scarcity is and will remain the main concern for Lao farmers, our study shows the importance of considering performance indicators beyond crop yields. Regarding the environmental aspect of SRS, our results highlight that the common use of chemical fertilizer does not really fit with agroecological principles. Nevertheless, the significant increase in the use of manure in comparison with other practices can anticipate a positive trend in term of environmental conservation.