Rice is arguably the most important staple of the Indonesian diet, making up around half of the country’s daily caloric needs. Yet, rice in Indonesia is often regarded as the most expensive within the South-East Asian region, which costs an estimated $800 per tonne. In comparison, rice in Vietnam costs $300 per tonne.

Recently, the Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman pledged that his ministry will cultivate 2.3 million hectares of rice fields, in a bid to accomplish the goal of food self-sufficiency set by President Prabowo Subianto.

In his inaugural speech when he assumed office on October 20th 2024, President Prabowo positively stated that Indonesia should and will be able to achieve food self-sufficiency in 4-5 years. He continued to express his confidence that by 2025, Indonesia will no longer import rice and even “stop imports of all food commodities”.

The top three rice suppliers to Indonesia are Thailand, Vietnam, and Pakistan. Myanmar and Cambodia are close behind in supplying rice imports to the country. Overall, the Central Statistics Agency reported that Indonesia has imported 3.05 million tonnes of rice from January to August 2024 alone. Rice imports represent a 121.34% increase when compared to the same period last year.

Amid rising geopolitical tensions and crises, the significance of having a self-sufficient rice industry cannot be overstated. Exporting countries may put a stop to their export activities during a crisis, and Indonesia must strengthen their current position and increase its national food security.

Rice production in Indonesia is a complex industry to navigate as the government must carefully balance two key objectives: first, to make sure rice prices remain affordable for consumers, and second, to ensure rice prices are high enough to protect farmers’ incomes.

On the production side, Indonesia’s agricultural labour capacity skews to the older generation, as the younger rural population prefer to seek non-farming jobs in urban areas. This means cheap labour gets more scarce and pushes the prices of rice up. Furthermore, the growing and expanding urban development also contributed to the decrease in available agricultural land.

Climate change is also to blame due to the increasingly hotter droughts during dry seasons and torrential rains causing floods during the wet season; this causes inconsistent and lower rice outputs and harvest timings.

According to Mangi Habir and Siwage Negara, fellows at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, the government must place higher priority on building adequate infrastructure and sufficient planning. They stated that the Prabowo administration must not jump straight into a “large undertaking” of this issue through its “massive food estate programmes in Central Kalimantan and North Sumatra”.

They advised that the food estate programme must be scaled down, carefully monitored and assessed, and to make any final necessary adjustments before committing to a large national project.

Indonesia’s rice industry currently meets 93% of the domestic demand. Imports are projected to reach 5.17 tonnes in 2024, which could potentially lead to the country’s highest rice import record yet. This statistic also does not take into account other imported food commodities such as wheat, corn, and sugar.

Despite this, according to the latest Global Hunger Index report, Indonesia placed in the 77th position out of 127 countries, with a “moderate” level of food insecurity.

In response, the Head of the National Food Agency in Indonesia announced that the rice assistance program will continue in 2025 as well. But, it comes with a caveat that the number of beneficiary families will be reduced from 22 million in 2024 to only 16 million in 2025.

This is due to the tight budgetary situation facing the Indonesian government because the Prabowo administration must narrow down the assistance to only the most needy of families. In order to offset this, Jakarta has also introduced other programs, which will come into focus in 2025, such as the Free Nutritious Meals program.

Regardless of the complications plaguing Indonesia’s rice production, Prabowo must cultivate a strong stance in improving the industry conditions to incentivise farmers and provide affordable prices for Indonesian citizens. It is necessary to combat the reliance on rice imports to achieve national self-sufficiency, as the ASEAN region’s geopolitical stability has the potential to worsen in the near future.