FOOD security debates in many South-East Asian countries like Indonesia often begin with a powerful but misleading idea: a country is secure only if it can feed itself. Yet global evidence tells a very different story.
Consider Singapore. It is widely regarded as one of the countries with the strongest food security systems in the world, despite producing almost no food domestically. If food security simply meant self-sufficiency, Singapore should be extremely vulnerable. In fact, the opposite is true.
This paradox highlights an important lesson: food security is not the same as food self-sufficiency. Countries such as Singapore, Japan and Norway rely heavily on food imports but consistently rank among the top performers in global food security indicators. Meanwhile, several countries with large agricultural sectors still face serious food insecurity due to poverty, weak distribution systems and institutional constraints.
Producing food is not the same as ensuring people can eat. The difference lies not in production but in income levels, logistics, market integration and purchasing power.
This insight is not new. More than four decades ago, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen transformed how economists understand famine and food security. In his classic work Poverty and Famines, Sen showed that hunger does not always occur because food is unavailable.
In many historical famines, food supplies were adequate, but certain groups lost the economic means to access them. As Sen put it, households obtain food through several channels: producing it themselves, purchasing it in markets, earning income through labour or receiving transfers from others or the state.
When these channels collapse, because of unemployment, rising prices, or declining incomes, people can lose access to food even when the overall supply remains sufficient. This perspective shifts the policy focus from production to access.
Indonesia’s development history also offers lessons on strengthening food security through broader economic policy.
One example is the population policy introduced during the early New Order period. Widjojo Nitisastro, architect of New Order's economy, emphasised that uncontrolled population growth could trap economies in a Malthusian cycle, where increases in food production are offset by rapid population growth.
Indonesia’s family planning programme helped break this dynamic. By slowing population growth, the country reduced pressure on land and water resources and allowed agricultural productivity gains to translate into higher living standards.
Today, however, Indonesia faces a structural challenge that might be called a “rice trap.”
Rice is not merely a staple food in Indonesia; it also sits at the centre of the rural economy. The rice sector is dominated by smallholders with very limited land holdings, often less than half a hectare.
Agricultural research frequently observes an “inverse relationship” between farm size and productivity: small farmers can achieve relatively high yields per hectare because they rely heavily on family labour. Yet, a high productivity does not necessarily translate into higher income. With extremely small landholdings, even efficient farming generates limited household earnings.
At the same time, Engel’s law suggests that as incomes rise, households spend a smaller share of their income on staple foods such as rice. Even if rice production continues to increase, demand growth will eventually slow relative to other sectors of the economy.
The combination of small landholdings, surplus rural labour and limited demand growth can create a structural trap in which too many workers remain concentrated in low-productivity rice farming while the rest of the economy expands.
Escaping this trap requires a broader view of food policy. Indonesia has already experienced one example of such strategic thinking.
In the early years of the New Order, economist Sumitro Djojohadikusumo supported the development of the domestic wheat-processing industry. At the time, wheat-based foods were unfamiliar in Indonesian diets.
Over time, investment in flour milling and food processing led to rapid growth in wheat consumption. This diversification of carbohydrate sources indirectly strengthened Indonesia’s food security.
If rice had remained the only major staple, pressure on domestic agricultural land would have been far greater. Instead, Indonesia effectively “borrowed” land and water resources from other countries by importing wheat while focusing domestic agriculture on crops suited to local conditions.
A similar strategy can be seen in China today. China once exported soybeans, but over the past two decades, it deliberately transformed itself into the world’s largest soybean importer. The shift was driven by resource constraints. Soybean production requires large amounts of land and water, which are increasingly scarce due to rapid urbanisation and industrialisation.
In effect, China imports “virtual land and water.” Sourcing land-intensive crops abroad conserves domestic resources while strengthening food supply chains.
Indonesia’s experience with price stabilisation also reflects this broader approach. For poorer households, food, especially rice, accounts for a large share of total spending, making price stability particularly important.
Yet public stock-based stabilisation systems also have limitations. Maintaining large food reserves is costly, and determining the optimal stock level is inherently difficult. At the same time, relying solely on international markets carries risks.
The global food crises of 2008, disruptions during the Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical conflicts such as the Russia–Ukraine war demonstrate how fragile food trade can become during global shocks. For this reason, neither extreme, complete self-sufficiency or total dependence on imports, offers a sustainable solution.
Food security in the modern economy requires a systems approach.
Domestic productivity must improve through better seeds, irrigation and technology. Logistics must reduce price volatility and post-harvest losses.
Diversified diets can reduce excessive dependence on a single staple crop.
Strategic reserves can provide buffers against shocks, while international trade can stabilise supply when domestic production fluctuates.
Ultimately, the most food-secure countries are not those that produce everything themselves. They are those who build resilient systems, combining domestic production, trade, institutions and purchasing power, to ensure food remains accessible under any circumstance.
Food security, ultimately, is not about growing everything. It is about making sure no one goes hungry. — The Jakarta Post/ANN
Mohamad Ikhsan is an economics professor at the University of Indonesia.
