The world faces the prospect of a major food crisis with four main contributing factors –demand, supply, distribution and ecological impact. Deteriorating environmental growing conditions, increasing demand and increasing inequality combine to produce significant food security risk in many developing countries. Indonesia is among the 30 countries most at risk. Here the food security problem is essentially a rice problem, as up to 1,25 million tons have had to be imported annually, mostly  from India and the Mekong Delta, which is itself under severe threat. Small farmers grow most of Indonesia’s domestic rice, but they now struggle to make a living from farming, partly because government interventions depress prices. For disadvantaged consumers all over Indonesia, in turn, fluctuations of the market price of rice are a vital concern.

The mainstream approach, shared by the agricultural research complex, corporations, many international development agencies and the Indonesian government, is to enhance capital investment, new technology and better market access, but this leads to a growth of corporate land holdings and profit oriented production decisions. The alternative approach, shared by small-farmers organisations, NGOs and ethnographic researchers, tend toward solutions grounded in local knowledge, traditional farming, and systems of distribution and consumption that are embedded in local moral economies. A more integrated policy choice is now required, and the paper examines the two options. Notably, it looks at initiatives by farmers to convert to organic production to reduce production costs and add market value.