A move by the Indonesian government to encourage food self-sufficiency in beef has backfired and disrupted the whole industry. Butchers in the capital, Jakarta, went on strike after a government edict cutting beef imports from Australia by 80% sent prices rocketing and had consumers shunning beef for other meats. Australia has been providing about 40% of the beef consumed in Indonesia. But the government’s decision to allow only 50,000 Australian cattle to be imported in the third quarter of the year, less than one-fifth of imports in the second quarter, put store prices up by a third.
