Deputy Minister Warns Rice Traders: Excessive Profits Prohibited

Deputy Minister of Agriculture (Wamentan) Sudaryono has stressed that the government tightly supervises the trade of essential staple goods from the producer level right through to the consumer. Consequently, business operators cannot freely take large profits from the sale of strategic food commodities such as rice, maize, sugar, and cooking oil. According to Sudaryono, the food sector differs from other commodity businesses that are not specifically regulated by the government. In the trade of essential staples, the government has established various price control instruments so that producers still earn a reasonable profit while simultaneously protecting the public from price surges. “Trading or selling in the essential food sector cannot take profits recklessly. The producers are measured, the consumers are also measured in price. Producers are measured by the cost of production, so it must not be too high above the production cost. Because if the production cost is too high, the product’s retail price ceiling will become expensive,” Sudaryono said when met at his office in Jakarta on Friday (5/6/2026). He explained that the government has the task of maintaining a balance between the interests of producers and consumers. On one hand, farmers and business operators must still obtain a decent profit. On the other hand, the public must not be burdened with excessively high food prices. “So the government’s task is to adjust or regulate so that at the producer level the price is profitable for them, whether it is paddy, maize, eggs, chicken, whatever the form, and to ensure with the retail price ceiling that consumers are not disadvantaged by overly expensive prices,” he stated. Due to the existence of Sales Reference Price and Retail Price Ceiling regulations, the margin for profit in the staple goods trade is limited. Sudaryono said that business operators in the essential food sector indeed cannot seek excessive profit margins. “So if you sell rice, maize, granulated sugar, cooking oil, you cannot possibly make a lot of profit. Because the profit is measured between the Sales Reference Price and the Retail Price Ceiling,” he stressed. He then compared this with other business sectors not categorised as essential public needs. According to him, the government provides wider scope for business operators to trade and seek profits in non-staple goods sectors. “But if you sell other things, for example, exporting coffee, or exporting chocolate, exporting anything (non-staple), there are no rules for that,” Sudaryono said. “For that, please go ahead, people can do downstream processing from raw materials, semi-finished goods, three-quarters finished, to final products, that is fine. But for essential basic needs, this cannot be done, all of this is regulated,” he continued. Regarding the potential rise in rice prices, Sudaryono confirmed the government has prepared several measures to maintain price stability in the market. Supervision will continue to be carried out and enforcement will be an option if violations are found. “The mitigation, clearly we check. There are three ways if the price is too expensive. The first is food aid. Secondly, the government’s supply and price stabilisation rice. The third, there must be enforcement. Shops selling goods at high prices must eventually be acted upon, upstream, not just downstream,” he concluded.