Introduction

In January 2026, the Indonesian government announced that the country had achieved rice self-sufficiency, with national production exceeding domestic consumption and no imports required for public needs.

President Prabowo Subianto framed the achievement as a strategic win and urged that the momentum be extended to other food commodities.

This domestic milestone somehow coincided with a broader global reassessment of how food is produced and sustained under growing ecological and geopolitical pressures. In the 179th FAO council meeting held on 1-5 December 2025, member states released FAO’s new flagship publication entitled “The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture 2025” (SOLAW 2025).

The global conversation captured in this literature is highly relevant for Indonesia. Despite being endowed with vast natural resources, Indonesia faces mounting pressures on its land and water systems. While rice self-sufficiency target is achieved, Indonesia’s land resources are undergoing rapid degradation.

Multiple Pressures

Although the deforestation rate has decreased in the last 10 years, the rate at which Indonesia’s forests are disappearing is still alarming, with 175,400 hectares lost in 2024 alone. In addition, urban expansion is also shrinking agricultural land, particularly on Ja

Peatland degradation adds another layer of problem. Drained peatland areas induce vulnerability to Indon

Beyond ecological stress, the challenges are worsened by fragmented governance. Such institutional silos often manifest in overlapping land permits, where large-scale industrial concessions frequently clash with protected forest areas or smallholder farmlands. The sl

Furthermore, the lack of transparency in top-down initiatives like the Food Estate programme highlights a disconnect between central production targets and community-based food systems.

The consequences are visible on the ground—agrarian conflicts persist across Indonesia. Despite the enactment of Undang-Undang Pokok Agraria Tahun 1960 (Basic Agrarian Law 1960), the reality has moved in the opposite direction compared to the initial aims, which is to secure justice for farmers. Data shows that 17.25 million farming families control less than 0.5 hectares, with many earning barely Rp50,000 per day.

These multiple layers of pressure illustrate why high production alone is not sufficient to secure Indonesia’s food future. Achieving self-sufficiency by increasing production – if done despite land degradation, governance fragmentation or social exclusion – risks undermining the very systems that sustain agriculture.

This is where the FAO’s call to “produce more and better” in SOLAW 2025 becomes relevant for Indonesia.

Tech for the Modern Field

Indonesia cannot rely on land expansion to meet future food needs. The only viable path forward is to increase productivity from existing land through innovation. In this vein, Indonesia should leverage the momentum provided by FAO to adopt precision agriculture more rigorously.

The practice of precision agriculture allows farmers to apply fertilisers, pesticides, and water only where and when they are needed. In the process, it reduces input costs, prevents soil degradation and minimises the risk of water pollution. Laboratory tests, thus, play an important role in expanding this practice.

Precision agriculture also means tailoring Indonesia’s diverse landscapes to climate-smart farming needs. In drought-prone areas, for instance, this means the utilisation of water-saving technologies such as drip irrigation or rainwater harvesting. In flood-prone regions, meanwhile, it relates to involving the raised-bed farming method or adaptive crop varieties.

Thus, accurate and integrated digital soil and water maps, information on soil nutrients, moisture le

One Map, One Nation: The Data Imperative

Currently, several ministries have developed their own spatial datasets. Different scales, boundaries and definitions often lead to mismatched maps, administrative disputes, and inconsistent planning decisions. Therefore, it is imperative that the government come up with a unified national database that integrates land, soil, and water information across ministries and levels of government.

A national integrated database would allow ministries, provincial governments and local authorities to work from a single source of information, not multiple ones that confuse or contradict each other. This integrated database would help identify priority areas for agricultural intensification. In addition, it ensures that food production does not encroach on critical ecosystems, because land-use decisions would be based on clear, harmonised and scientifically validated spatial information.

Integrating Crops and Livestock

Once precision in input use and data systems is established, Indonesia can move toward a more circular agricultural model. By recycling nutrients locally, farmers can reduce dependency on external inputs while improving soil health.

Integrated crop-livestock systems also diversify income sources and increase resilience to climate and market shocks. These integrated systems are particularly relevant for Indonesia—when managed carefully, such systems can raise productivity per hectare without expanding farmland while maintaining ecological functions.

In mixed crop-cattle systems, for example, manure from cattle can be returned to maize, rice or forage fields, reducing fertiliser costs while improving soil structure as well as water-holding capacity.

In oil palm or other perennial crop systems, controlled and managed cattle grazing can utilise undergrowth vegetation, returning nutrients to the soil through manure deposition.

Rice-duck integration is another similar system that offer the same benefits. Ducks help control pests and weeds, thus decreasing the need for chemical pesticide. Duck excreta also enrich paddy soils. On the other side, rice farmers gain an additional source of protein and income from ducks and duck eggs.

By recycling nutrients locally, farmers can reduce dependency on external inputs while improving soil health and nutrient balance. Integrated crop-livestock systems also diversify income sources and increase resilience, as farmers are not dependent on a single commodity.

Policy and Incentives

The transition toward “producing b

Beyond acce

For small farmers, the main barriers are not a lack of willingness to innovate but limited access to capital, data and technical infrastructure. Thus, public investment must be revitalised not only to launch new technology but also to strengthen services that help farmers interpret data, adapt practices to local conditions and organise collectively.

This is where the private sector can play a complementary role. Agritech firms can accelerate the deployment of precision tools and other related technologies. In this scenario, public-private partnerships are necessary.

However, these public-private partnerships must be carefully designed. Farmers must be involved in the decision-making process rather than playing the role of passive recipients. This way, farmers will develop a sense of ownership over the new agricultural practices explored above.

Indonesia’s rice self-sufficiency in 2025 is an important achievement, but it should not be understood as the final measure of food security success. Producing more rice alone does not guarantee resilience if the gains are achieved through degrading land and water resources. The message from SOLAW 2025 is also clear in that the world’s food challenges will be solved not by expanding land, but by managing what we already have. In other words, there is a need to be better, smarter and fairer in our agricultural practices. This is the momentum for Indonesia to turn this insight into policy to unlock its land potential and safeguard its food future.

Introduction

Southeast Asia is now one of the world’s most climate-exposed regions. From flash floods in Bali to droughts in the Mekong Delta, extreme weather is disrupting agriculture and rural livelihoods.

Agriculture sits at the centre of a paradox. It contributes to emissions while also being among the first to suffer from climate shocks. Agricultural activities that sustain rural livelihoods now face the impacts of the climate crisis it helped create.

Building resilience in agriculture is, thus, not a choice but a necessity. One promising approach is circular agriculture, a system that reduces waste, recycles resources, and integrates crops and livestock to strengthen both productivity and sustainability. Essentially, circular agriculture helps build our resilience.

Resilience is not just about crops or animals—it is also about people. In the context of Southeast Asia, the region needs a dual strategy: 1) biological resilience, which relates to climate-adaptive crops and livestock, and; 2) social resilience, which concerns farmers’ capacity to sustain their work and income under pressure.

Biological Resilience

Resilience in agriculture is not just about surviving climate shocks but adapting to them. Agricultural practices must shift toward climate adaptation. Building biological resilience in agriculture requires two parallel strategies.

Firstly, developing and deploying climate-adaptive varieties and breeds, such as heat-tolerant rice, drought-resilient maize, and cattle breeds capable of co

Across Southeast Asia, research institutions are already advancing this agenda. Each country has drought-tolerant rice varieties to heat-resilient maize hybrids. For livestock, crossbreeding programmes that combine productivity with adaptability are widely adopted in several countries.

Secondly, management practices must also adapt to changing conditions. Adaptive management practices help farmers reduce risk and maintain productivity despite rising uncertainty.

In crop systems, many Southeast Asian growers are already shifting their planting schedules to match changing rainfall patterns, helping them avoid losses when the seasons come late or end early. In livestock systems, adapting means improving how animals are fed, bred, and housed so they can better cope with heat and disease. Wastes, remains and leftovers are also not thrown away—they are turned into resources.

These changes show that climate adaptation is not just about survival but also how to make farms more efficient by devising creative strategies in response to limiting circumstances.

Social Resilience

On the social side, resilience depends on people’s ability to anticipate, absorb and adapt to risk. Diversification is key to this process. Farmers who rely on a single crop or commodity are highly vulnerable to market volatility, pest outbreaks and extreme weather events.

Diversifying what farmers grow and produce helps them spread risk and keep their livelihood steady. By combining crops and livestock, they can build self-sustaining systems. This way, farms rely less on costly external inputs and more on the resources they already have.

This approach strengthens not just household income but also communal cohesion. This is because circular agriculture’s paradigm acknowledges that everything on a farm connects, one that emphasises on balance and renewal. When farmers share resources, they build networks of mutual support that help others.

In the traditional model of farming, fertilisers, feed and fuel are brought in, and whatever remains is simply thrown away. Circular agriculture takes a different approach by following the same rhythm as nature, where nothing is wasted. Everything that leaves the field can be used again to support the next cycle of production.

With these cycles, circular agriculture reduces both environmental impact and economic inefficiency, helping farmers achieve sustainability through smarter resource use and sharing.

In practice, circular agriculture can transform smallholder systems across Southeast Asia. On a small farm in Java, for instance, rice straw that would once have been burnt can be turned into feed for cattle, while the animals’ manure is returned to the fields to enrich the soil. Some farmers also raise fish in their paddy fields, making better use of their land, add

Such models can thrive when communities are involved in designing and managing them. Farmer cooperatives that share resources, labour, and knowledge can reduce transaction costs and enhance access to markets. Government programmes and NGOs can further amplify this impact by providing training, certification and access to green financing for circular practices.

Scaling Up

Implementing such practices at scale demands institutional support and investment. We need real-world adoption, ensuring research outputs do not just sit in academic journals but reach the hands of farmers. Besides, scaling up requires strong extension systems that connect scientists, policymakers and farmers.

Scaling this approach in Southeast Asia means combining local wisdom with scientific innovation. Farmers already practise elements of circularity; what is missing is institutional and technological support to scale up, along with clear incentives that make these efforts worthwhile.

Circular agriculture fits neatly within regional priorities. ASEAN has committed to strengthening food security and climate adaptation. Meanwhile, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has promoted agroecological and circular approaches across Asia. The challenge now is turning frameworks into practice.

This means developing affordable small-scale technologies, building markets that value sustainably produced food and providing robust extension services. Furthermore, innovation in laboratories and research centres is only the first step—promising technologies need effective dissemination and adoption. It also means creating financing mechanisms that reward farmers who adopt climate-smart, circular practices.

Climate solutions do not always need to come from international negotiations or high-tech laboratories. Sometimes, they lie in the quiet, often overlooked practices of rural communities; practices that we should recognise, support and elevate.

The climate crisis is not just a technological or policy challenge but a test of collective will. Strengthening agriculture resilience in Southeast Asia requires all hands on deck—from the lab to the field, from policymakers to farmers and from consumers to corporations.

Every actor in the food system must see resilience not as a distant goal but as a shared responsibility grounded in daily choices of what we produce, how we consume and how we value nature’s cycles.

Circular agriculture offers a way forward precisely because it links these layers together. It connects scientific innovation with traditional knowledge and environmental protection with economic opportunity.

Conclusion

By closing resource loops and promoting efficiency, circular agriculture helps farmers reduce dependence on external inputs while nurturing ecosystems that sustain future production. More importantly, it empowers rural communities to take ownership of adaptation.

For Southeast Asia, adopting circular agriculture is a political and moral choice. It signals that the region is ready to move beyond extractive development models toward ones that regenerate land, livelihood and trust in local systems.

The road ahead will not be simple. Building truly sustainable food systems will take smart policies that makes sustainable choices practical for everyone, not just ideal in theory. But the payoff is worth it; food systems that are more resilient, more inclusive and strong enough to withstand the climate shocks. As environmentalist James G Speth once said, “I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy.”