Sustainable Food Self-Sufficiency

Two years ago, in his inauguration speech on 20 October 2024, President Prabowo Subianto set a target of achieving food self-sufficiency within four years. The target was later brought forward to three years at the APEC forum in Peru, and then to one year at a plenary cabinet meeting on 22 January 2025. It was an ambitious goal, and many doubted it, until data and evidence earlier this year showed surpluses in strategic foods such as rice and maize. President Prabowo’s direction and thinking on food were not new.

Food has been a concern for Prabowo Subianto from the outset, long before he became President of Indonesia. This is reflected in the food policy outlined in the Gerindra Party’s Struggle Manifesto and in his book Indonesia’s Paradox and Its Solution, which stresses that food is a strategic commodity, not merely an economic one.

President Prabowo subsequently made food self-sufficiency one of the 17 priority programmes and eight quick-win programmes under his Asta Cita vision. The goal was then incorporated into Presidential Regulation No. 12 of 2025 on the 2025–2029 National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN).

As the world marks World Food Day on 16 October 2026, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has chosen the theme “Innovate today, Nourish tomorrow”. In keeping with that message, it is time to assess the results clearly: what has been achieved, what has not, and what must be safeguarded to ensure self-sufficiency does not remain just a set of figures?

From dependence to sufficiency

Data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) and the National Food Agency (Bapanas) show that rice production in 2025 reached 34.69 million tonnes, a surplus of 3.5 million tonnes and a 13.29 per cent increase from 30.62 million tonnes in 2024. Rice imports, which stood at around 4.5 million tonnes in 2024, fell to zero in 2025. Maize production in 2025 reached 16.11 million tonnes at 14 per cent moisture content, generating a surplus of 0.47 million tonnes without imports. As of August 2026, government rice reserves stood at 5.24 million tonnes, the highest level in the history of national rice stocks.

At the MPR’s annual session on 14 August 2026, the President said Indonesia had achieved self-sufficiency in eight food commodities: rice, maize, table sugar, chicken meat, chicken eggs, shallots, large chillies and bird’s-eye chillies. This achievement matters as food crises loom abroad. According to UN reports, the war in the Middle East risks pushing tens of millions more people into acute hunger. The FAO estimates that around 720 million people worldwide are experiencing hunger. Ample stocks give Indonesia a buffer when global markets are volatile.

Production does not rise through slogans alone. From 22 October 2025, the ceiling retail price for subsidised fertiliser was cut by 20 per cent under Agriculture Ministerial Decree No. 1117/Kpts./SR.310/M/10/2025, alongside a simplification of distribution procedures. The impact can be seen in increased subsidised fertiliser distribution in 2026. Fertiliser is a decisive cost for farmers. Lowering prices while improving distribution is a concrete way of supporting them.

Farmers need not only affordable inputs, but also certainty that their harvests will be bought at a fair price. The Government Purchase Price (HPP) for unhusked rice, at Rp6,500 per kilogram, provides an anchor for rice farmers. For maize, Presidential Instruction No. 3 of 2026 sets a target of procuring one million tonnes domestically during 2026, at an HPP of Rp5,500 per kilogram for maize with 18–20 per cent moisture content. The maize is to be held as government reserves through 2029. Under this instruction, maize will no longer be abandoned during the main harvest, when prices typically come under pressure.

Farmers’ Terms of Trade highest in 34 years

One of the most commonly used indicators of farmers’ welfare is the Farmers’ Terms of Trade (NTP). According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and BPS, the national NTP reached 131.11 in September 2026, its highest level since records began in 1992. For decades, it fluctuated between 100 and 110, and briefly touched 100.15 in 2008. The trend has climbed steeply since 2022, passing 112 in 2024 before exceeding 131 this year. This means prices received by farmers have risen faster than the prices they pay.

Research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Policy Studies (IPB, 2025) found a significant positive correlation between the implementation of the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) programme and the NTP. It is important to remember that correlation is not causation, and the NTP is not the sole measure of welfare. Nevertheless, the trend is encouraging, and MBG could become a major outlet for locally produced farm goods.

Self-sufficiency based solely on cultivation would be fragile. Added value must therefore circulate in rural areas. The government has established more than 80,081 Merah Putih Village/Ward Cooperatives (KDKMP). As of 29 September 2026, 17,288 had buildings and had been verified, while 1,081 were operating. The cooperatives will matter to farmers if they buy agricultural produce, distribute production inputs, and own rice mills and warehouses—not if they are merely signs on a building.

Lower fertiliser prices, guaranteed HPP and buyers through MBG and KDKMP mean little to farmers who have no land or whose plots are shrinking. For that reason, passing an Agrarian Reform Management Law would be a fundamental act of support. The law would provide secure access to land for smallholders and communities around forests, resolve agrarian conflicts and provide a framework for redistributing land ownership.

At the same time, efforts to regulate forest areas present an opportunity. The Forest Area Regulation Task Force has repossessed 6.2 million hectares of forest land used for oil-palm plantations and 14,633.79 hectares of mining areas. For the results of this action to be fair, some of the land should be made accessible to small farmers through agrarian reform and social forestry. Meanwhile, the protection of Sustainable Food Agricultural Land (LP2B) must be enforced locally under Presidential Regulation No. 4 of 2026 on Controlling the Conversion of Rice Fields. Production cannot be sustained if rice fields continue to be converted.

Safeguarding self-sufficiency

The Asta Cita vision makes food self-sufficiency a foundation for national independence and development from the villages. To ensure the vision lasts beyond one or two harvest seasons, several issues need attention. There are at least eight priorities. First, protect productivity, not merely the area planted, through irrigation, water-pumping systems, improved seeds and mechanisation. Mitigate drought and El Niño early to ensure production continues to grow from 2027 to 2029. Second, ensure subsidised fertiliser arrives on time and reaches the right recipients. Increased volumes must reach eligible farmers, and the government should also consider adding more crops to the list eligible for subsidised fertiliser.

Third, narrow the gap between prices received by farmers and those paid by consumers by strengthening community rice mills, warehouse receipts and logistics, and making KDKMP cooperatives buyers of farm produce and suppliers of production inputs. Fourth, extend price guarantees to horticulture, livestock and fisheries, including by using MBG to purchase products from local farmers, livestock breeders and fishers through contracts with cooperatives and farmer groups.

Fifth, maintain food reserves and manage imports properly. Self-sufficiency in eight commodities must be supported by detailed commodity balance sheets. Beef and milk are still imported in large quantities, so their domestic production ecosystems need to be developed more quickly. Progress towards self-sufficiency should also be assessed continually against stocks and prices on the ground. Sixth, protect farmland and expand farmers’ secure access to land. Enforce LP2B to curb the conversion of agricultural land, accelerate agrarian reform and social forestry, and ensure that the repossession of forest areas gives smallholders and forest-edge communities access to land.

Seventh, renew the farming workforce and protect farmers. Measures worth pursuing include incentives for young farmers, broader crop insurance and affordable financing through cooperatives. Eighth, establish a single set of food data. Discrepancies between agencies’ production, stock and import figures undermine confidence among farmers and markets. BPS releases should serve as the sole reference, alongside Bapanas’s commodity balance sheets.

True support for the government is not applause, but scrutiny. Farmers’ organisations should help monitor the implementation of HPP on the ground, collect local cases of agrarian conflict and land conversion, and report obstacles to the Ministry of Agriculture and Commission IV of the House of Representatives. Self-sufficiency is the work of millions of farmers, livestock breeders and fishers. Its success should therefore be measured by whether these small-scale food producers become more prosperous—not simply by whether warehouses are full.

On World Food Day 2026, there is reason for optimism. The next task is to make these gains sustainable: maintaining stable production amid climate change, securing fair prices for farmers, protecting and fairly redistributing land, and ensuring the integrity of data. That is how food self-sufficiency can become a genuine foundation for national sovereignty, in keeping with the FAO’s theme for World Food Day 2026.