Food security synergy

There is a lot of room for China and Indonesia to learn from each other and strengthen cooperation in agricultural and rural modernization

As important members of the Global South, both China and Indonesia have achieved rapid economic and social development in recent years and also made progress in agricultural and rural modernization.

Over the past two years, a joint research team from China Agricultural University and Universitas Indonesia found that, thanks to the effective promotion of policies integrating agriculture with culture and tourism, many villages in China’s Yunnan province are no longer synonymous with poverty and backwardness in the traditional sense. Rural industries have become more diversified, farmers’ livelihood resilience has significantly improved, and rural areas are realizing transformative development. These achievements are attributed to the impetus of China’s rural vitalization strategy.

The Indonesian government also attaches great importance to rural poverty reduction and development. After Prabowo Subianto took office as president in 2024, the government made safeguarding food security and promoting rural transformation key administrative priorities, increasing infrastructure investment in rural areas and pushing for the transition of traditional agriculture toward intensive and large-scale operations. The most notable achievement is that by the end of 2025, Indonesia no longer needed to import rice due to a substantial production surplus. Also, it is estimated that the country’s rural poverty rate dropped to 10.72 percent in 2025.

Given some similarities in agricultural and rural development between China and Indonesia, the two countries have actively learned from each other’s development experiences and continuously deepened practical cooperation over the past few years. This has better aligned the complementarity of their agricultural resource endowments, thereby promoting agricultural and rural modernization in both countries.

During Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s visit to China in November 2024, the two countries issued a joint statement on advancing the comprehensive strategic partnership and the China-Indonesia community with a shared future, which proposed to expand cooperation in poverty alleviation, agricultural and rural vitalization and modernization. This laid a solid foundation for deepening multi-dimensional agricultural cooperation between the two sides and steadily advancing exchange of governance experience related to rural poverty reduction and rural vitalization.

China and Indonesia have comparative advantages in agricultural development, which helps smallholder farmers in both countries better integrate into the global value chain, accumulating a material foundation for agricultural and rural modernization. It is particularly worth mentioning that since the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership took effect in 2022, measures facilitating agricultural trade have advanced steadily. As one of the world’s largest aquaculture producers, Indonesia has continuously made new breakthroughs in aquatic product exports to China. Data released by the Indonesian Ministry of Trade showed that in 2025, Indonesia’s export volume of aquatic products to China surpassed 490,000 metric tons, with an export value of approximately $1.04 billion.

China and Indonesia rank second and fourth globally in population, respectively, making food security a top priority for both. In recent years, China has continuously strengthened cooperation with Indonesia on advanced agricultural technologies, such as hybrid rice, and supported the establishment of demonstration fields in several major rice-producing regions. It is estimated that of the more than 80 hybrid rice varieties approved by the Indonesian government, over 60 originated from China. Such agricultural technological cooperation not only assists Indonesia in enhancing its food security but also plays a positive role in improving the livelihood resilience of smallholder farmers.

China and Indonesia also value cooperation in frontier fields such as digital agriculture. For example, as one of the world’s largest durian producers, Indonesia saw Chinese authorities conduct accession assessments for its durian plantations and packaging facilities, paving the way for Indonesian durians to enter the Chinese market. Subsequently, starting in 2025, the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture, alongside agricultural enterprises from both countries, jointly established a national-level digital platform for Indonesia covering the entire chain of planting, traceability, cross-border trade and marketing. This will help realize full-process digital management of Indonesian durians from field to consumer, assist smallholder farmers in integrating into the global value chain, and enhance the international competitiveness of Indonesian agricultural products. Of course, agricultural and rural development in China and Indonesia face similar challenges. The concept of village in China, or xiangcun, is essentially equivalent to Indonesia’s kampung (peri-urban/rural-urban interface). At present, the modernization of both xiangcun and kampung lags behind that of cities, making the acceleration of the pace of modernization a vital task.

Not long ago, the Chinese government released a plan to accelerate agricultural and rural modernization during the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, proposing to better advance Chinese modernization through the acceleration of agricultural and rural modernization. Indonesia similarly focuses on rural transformation and modernization. Overall, there is a lot of room for China and Indonesia to learn from each other and strengthen cooperation in agricultural and rural modernization.

First, China’s experience demonstrates that relying on forward-looking layouts such as five-year plans and continuously increasing investment in key areas such as rural infrastructure, industrial development and market expansion can effectively narrow the development gap between rural and urban areas, accelerating the agricultural and rural modernization process.

Second, sound governance efficacy is a necessary prerequisite for solving rural development challenges. China has achieved the rapid development of xiangcun by formulating the rural vitalization strategy paired with strong implementation mechanisms, which underscores the importance of national macro policies and their enforcement systems to agricultural and rural modernization.

Third, as populous countries, both China and Indonesia place food security at a strategic height and have taken concrete actions. The two countries can further leverage the conveniences created by the RCEP, exert their respective agricultural comparative advantages, and promote the steady development of agricultural trade and investment. This will inject more vitality into improving the quality and efficiency of the agricultural industry while elevating food security levels.

Fourth, in the current era of rapid technological advancement, strengthened cooperation between the two countries in frontier agricultural technology fields such as digital agriculture will facilitate the deep integration of the agricultural industry chain and provide a paradigm of cooperation for the unity and self-strengthening of the entire Global South.

Zhao Wenjie is an associate professor at the College of Humanities and Development Studies at China Agricultural University. Semiarto Aji Purwanto is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Universitas Indonesia. Vaisnava Vidia Mahatma is a research assistant in the Department of Anthropology at Universitas Indonesia.

The authors contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.