In the midst of growing nationalism, the notion of 'food sovereignty' has come to occupy an increasingly prominent place in food policy within Indonesia. But what does food sovereignty mean, and is it being used within Indonesia in similar ways to which it is understood globally? How effective are food sovereignty policies in enabling Indonesia to tackle the considerable challenge of ensuring all of its citizens have access to sufficient food, and is it possible the government might adopt an alternative approach?

Dr Dave McRae explores these issues with Dr Jeff Neilson is a senior lecturer in Geography at the University of Sydney and Indonesian coordinator of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre. With Josephine Wright, Jeff co-authored a recent paper on food sovereignty, 'The state and food security discourses of Indonesia: feeding the bangsa' - he will have a chapter on the same topic in the forthcoming proceedings from this year's ANU Indonesia Update conference.

In 2017, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.

Photo Credit: Flickr user wahyu widhi w under CC BY-NC 2.0 license