Potential competitiveness of leading staple food commodities at marketable surplus stadia in Indonesia

Achieving a marketable surplus in leading food commodities (all types of food) is a crucial target for developing agricultural marketing and pricing policies, increasing imports and exports, expanding national food reserves, and advancing rural and national development. The competitiveness of superior food commodities, which includes all foods consumed in Indonesia, needs attention to achieve the Marketable Surplus stage for each superior food commodity in each region, with its specific characteristics, at both the food centre and national levels. This study is expected to meet the need for analytical data to increase the competitiveness of all types of superior food commodities at the Marketable Surplus stage, which is the dominant food commodity in every province in Indonesia. The research was conducted quantitatively. In this study, quantitative analysis was conducted use several analytical tools, namely the Location Quotient (LQ) method. The results of the LQ analysis of staple foods in Indonesia indicate that five main staple foods are growing and becoming centers of production: rice, corn, soybeans, cassava, and sweet potatoes. These are superior commodities, widely consumed and cultivated by the community. The results of the LQ analysis of the five most consumed staple food commodities in Indonesia show that the one with a competitive advantage and at the marketable surplus stage is Rice. For other food commodities that have become a basic sector, namely Corn, while other commodities, such as cassava and sweet potatoes, have not become basic sectors because they have not reached an LQ score of 1, they have still met local consumption. While soybean production is still very low, soybean consumption in Indonesia is currently quite high as a raw material for local foods such as soy sauce and tempeh which are typical local industries of Indonesia.