Indonesia’s food insecurity rate climbed to 10.4 percent in 2025, up from 8.7 percent in 2024, affecting approximately 29 million people. According to data analyzed using the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Insecurity Experience Scale, this rise is driven by increased household anxiety over food costs rather than physical food shortages. While concerns about affordability have grown, incidents of severe hunger, such as skipping meals, have continued to decline.
Did You Know? The rise in food insecurity is attributed to volatile food prices, which jumped 6.2 percent year-on-year in 2025, compared to a marginal 0.1 percent increase the previous year.
Why Food Insecurity Is Rising
The current trend is primarily a result of pressure on household purchasing power. When food prices outpace income growth, families typically prioritize maintaining the frequency of their meals by sacrificing the quality and variety of the food they consume. This behavior explains why moderate and severe food insecurity—defined as skipping meals or going full days without eating—has reached its lowest level in six years, even as overall insecurity figures have risen.
The impact is not distributed equally across the population. While the national rate of food insecurity sits at 10.4 percent, the figure climbs to 15.4 percent for vulnerable households and reaches 25.3 percent among the poorest families. These populations face the greatest difficulty in managing the rising cost of living.
The Risk to Child Stunting Progress
Rising food insecurity threatens to reverse Indonesia’s recent gains in public health. Data shows that food-insecure households are more than four times as likely to have a stunted child. Indonesia successfully reduced its child stunting rate from 27.7 percent in 2019 to 19.8 percent in 2024. If current financial pressures on households persist, experts warn that these improvements could be undermined, as the inability to access diverse, nutritious food directly impacts long-term child development.
How Targeting Can Improve Food Programs
Government food security initiatives, such as the free nutritious meal program, are being adjusted to better address these economic gaps. Current budget plans aim to reach 82.9 million people, yet only about 12 percent of the population faces a genuine shortfall in food quality or quantity. To maximize efficiency, the government has begun shifting resources away from schools that can sustain their own students, redirecting them toward remote and “3T” (frontier and outermost) regions where food deficits are one and a half times the national average.
Expert Insight: By sharpening the focus of the free meal program toward the most vulnerable regions and households, Indonesia could potentially reduce the necessary budget by roughly one-third—to between Rp 175 trillion and Rp 209 trillion. This strategy mimics successful, mature school-meal systems in countries like Japan and the United States, which emphasize strict nutritional standards and precise allocation to those with the highest need.
What May Happen Next
If the government successfully refines its targeting, the free meal program may function as more than just a nutrition initiative. By providing consistent, high-quality meals, the program could serve as an incentive to improve school participation rates in impoverished areas like Rote Ndao, where approximately one-third of children aged 16 to 18 were not enrolled in senior high school in 2025. Analysts suggest that if the program is implemented with careful oversight, it could help draw back some of the 2.9 million children currently out of the school system, effectively serving as an investment in the nation’s long-term human capital.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary cause of rising food insecurity in Indonesia?
The rise is driven by volatile food prices, which increased by 6.2 percent in 2025, creating pressure on household purchasing power rather than a lack of food availability.
Are people going hungry more often?
No. Data indicates that severe forms of food insecurity, such as skipping meals, have actually continued to decrease, reaching their lowest levels in six years.
How does food insecurity affect child stunting?
Food-insecure households are more than four times as likely to have a stunted child, making the current rise in insecurity a potential threat to the progress Indonesia made in reducing stunting rates between 2019 and 2024.
How will the government’s shift toward more localized, targeted food aid influence the overall health and educational outcomes of children in the 3T regions?
