Indonesia has the fourth largest population in the world and in the coming years food production will need to catch up with its growth. To fulfill the protein demand of this growing population, the productivity of the Indonesian agricultural sector should be increased. This can be achieved either by expanding the agricultural land or by increasing the productivity of existing agricultural land and protein use efficiency. An expansion of agricultural land is not always possible or desirable: large parts of Indonesia comprise forest areas, including tropical rain forests. Consequently, the optimization of the use of existing agricultural land is inevitable. The present manuscript describes and discusses the current protein consumption and production in Indonesia. It presents the levels predicted for 2035, which would imply a strong gap between consumption and production. Alternatives therefore need to be considered to avoid protein shortage in the future. These would include the use of new biomass resources, utilization of agricultural residues as alternative protein sources for feed and other nonfood applications, and biorefining of biomass sources. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd