A lot of the worlds food is produced by small farmers, on a fraction of the land, using a fraction of the resources used by industrial agriculture and with relatively little government and institutional support. This is especially so in Indonesia - a country of small farmers, especially of rice - the biggest crop and staple food of most of the population. The food security and political stability of the country depends on these farmers, but they are finding it harder and harder to make a living. Most are old and many are leaving agriculture for more lucrative employment. Land too is being retired from agricultural production. The government is aware of the problems but is doing little to really help address them. The most promising developments are self-help ones - by local farmers organisations and NGOs. These focus mostly on moving to more natural methods of production and shortening supply chains to consumers. However, the effectiveness of even these developments is limited by national-level political-economic structures of which the big rice and fertiliser industries are two of the most important. Ironically there is very little research on either of them. This presentation sketches the broad outlines of these industries and suggests a programme for future research.