DECEMBER became a tense month for Handoko. This small tofu producer from Kalideres, West Jakarta, felt his heart start to beat rapidly every time he visited the soybean merchant. Almost every day, soybean prices became more and more expensive, eventually hitting Rp8,000 per kilogram. So, during 2007, prices rose more than 100 percent.

Handoko certainly felt bitter. Fortunately, as a manager of the Indonesian Tofu & Tempe Primary Cooperative (Pri