More than 60 percent of Indonesia's soybean consumption still needs to be imported from abroad. To reduce its dependence on soybean imports Indonesia's Agriculture Ministry aims to enhance domestic soybean production. For this reason soybeans have been included in the government's list of strategic food commodities (other examples are rice, sugar and corn), meaning these food items get special attention from the government. The Agriculture Ministry targets to see the production of 1.5 million tons of soybean in 2016, up from an expected 920,000 tons this year. Meanwhile, Indonesian soybean demand in 2015 is estimated to reach 2.3 million tons.

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Prices of certain food commodities increased significantly due to a combination of political tensions in Ukraine, weak harvests and a possible new El Niño cycle (periodical warm ocean water temperatures off the western coast of South America that can cause climatic changes across the Pacific Ocean). El Niño is a well known weather phenomenon that occurs once every five years on average. However, its impact on the weather, harvests and the world varies; it can pass almost unnoticeable (such as in 2010) but it can also be felt worldwide.

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