This special issue of the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, focuses on rice policy in Indonesia. It could hardly be more timely. Rice policy is in a state of considerable uncertainty because of the previous government’s decision to ban rice imports, with the apparent intention of helping the poor.

A large proportion of the poor are consumers rather than producers of rice, however, and so lose rather than gain from the higher prices resulting from import restrictions. These restrictions have therefore become controversial, although they have yet to be abandoned. One reason for this is that Indonesia was self-sufficient in rice in the 1980s, albeit only temporarily; many still regard self-sufficiency as inherently desirable, and see rice imports as conflicting with this objective.