The development of human resource quality is a key determinant in achieving the vision of Indonesia Emas 2045 (Agustini, 2025; Azzahra et al., 2025). Indonesia currently faces a fundamental challenge in the form of chronic nutritional problems, with a stunting prevalence of 21.6% in 2023 (Rahim et al., 2025; Waluyo, 2025). This condition is exacerbated by the fact that approximately 41% to 48% of students in Indonesia go to school on an empty stomach, which directly reduces their concentration levels and academic performance (Agustini, 2025; Azzahra et al., 2025; Ritonga & Sazali, 2025). Nutritional problems not only affect individual health but also have implications for long-term economic productivity, as malnutrition during school-age years is associated with lower educational attainment, reduced workforce quality and diminished national competitiveness (Hoddinott et al., 2013; World Bank, 2020). Therefore, school-based nutrition interventions have become an important strategy for accelerating human capital accumulation while simultaneously reducing interregional developmental disparities.
As a policy response, the government launched the Free Nutritious Meals Program or Makan Bergizi Gratis (MBG), which targets approximately 82.9 million beneficiaries, including schoolchildren, toddlers, and pregnant women (Aji, 2025; Nurmansyah & Fitriani, 2025). With a budget allocation ranging from IDR 71 trillion to IDR 171 trillion, the MBG is positioned not merely as a social assistance program but also as a strategic investment in human capital (Agustini, 2025; Herdiana, 2025; Nurmansyah & Fitriani, 2025). In the public policy literature, school feeding programs have been shown to generate dual effects, namely, improvements in nutritional status and stimulation of local economies through increased demand for domestic food products (World Bank, 2009; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2018). Therefore, the MBG program is not only relevant in the context of health and education, but also holds potential as an instrument for rural economic transformation through a home-grown school feeding approach that integrates local farmers into the food supply chain.
Sociopolitically, the MBG creates a new “arena” in rural–urban relations. Lipton’s urban bias theory argues that development in developing countries often results in bias toward urban areas, where resources are disproportionately allocated to cities, whereas agricultural sectors and rural communities remain impoverished (Lipton, 1984). Crucially, Lipton’s framework is an analytical model of institutional capture: urban classes control the state apparatus to design resource allocation mechanisms, terms of trade, and technical standards that systematically extract rural surpluses for urban accumulation. In the context of the MBG, this policy has dual potential: it can serve as an instrument for redistributing capital to rural areas through the absorption of local agricultural products (home-grown school feeding), or conversely, it can become an urban populist instrument managed by large city-based vendors, thereby marginalizing local rural producers (Agustini, 2025; Andriyanty & Widyastutik, 2025; Khatimah et al., 2025; Khatmawati & Putri, 2026). This perspective aligns with the development of political economy arguments that emphasize how large-scale redistributive policies often generate new power relations in the distribution of resources among state actors, markets, and local communities (Bernstein, 2010; Scoones, 2015). Therefore, the implementation of the MBG program needs to be analyzed not only as a nutrition policy but also as a developmental political instrument that has the potential to influence rural economic structures.
Although the literature on school feeding programs is extensive, most studies focus primarily on health and educational outcomes, while the rural political economy dimension has received relatively limited attention. Previous research has emphasized improvements in nutritional status, student attendance, and academic achievement (World Bank, 2009; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2018). However, only a few studies have examined how such programs influence rural–urban relations, local economic power distribution, and fiscal dynamics of development. In Indonesia, existing studies on the MBG program tend to be sectoral in nature, focusing on nutritional impacts, budget evaluations, or technical implementation issues (Agustini, 2025; Khatimah et al., 2025; Nurmansyah & Fitriani, 2025). Therefore, they lack a comprehensive synthesis that links the program to the framework of urban bias and rural development policy.
Based on this gap, the present article explicitly positions itself as a theory-driven literature review situated at the intersection of public nutrition studies, the political economy of development, and rural sociology. Its central academic contribution is to synthesize disparate literature on the MBG through the analytical lens of Michael Lipton’s urban bias theory, clarifying how centralized policy designs may either reinforce or reduce spatial inequalities between urban and rural areas. This cross-literature analysis is crucial because large-scale national food redistribution policies, such as MBGs, have the potential to generate structural effects on local economies, including shifts in demand patterns for agricultural products, the formation of new supply chains, and the emergence of power contestation at the village level (Lipton, 1984; Scoones, 2015).
This study explores the political development dimension of the MBG by analyzing scientific publications to examine how this policy affects farmers’ welfare, power dynamics at the local level, and logistical challenges in remote areas that have long been neglected by urban-centric policies. Thus, this study aims to provide a theoretical contribution to the development of rural political economy studies while offering policy implications on how the MBG program can be designed as an instrument to reduce urban bias and strengthen local economies. The findings of this study are expected to serve as a foundation for formulating policies that are more inclusive, transparent, and spatially equitable in the implementation of national nutrition programs in Indonesia.

This study employed a qualitative approach using a theory-driven literature review method. It is crucial to emphasize a conceptual synthesis of the literature aimed at understanding the dynamics of the MBG program from a rural political economy perspective. This approach was selected because it can capture the complexity of the relationships among policies, actors, and social contexts that cannot be adequately explained through quantitative methods, particularly in multilevel and multidisciplinary development policy analyses. The methodological framework refers to the meta-narrative approach developed by Snyder (2019), which enables researchers to identify key themes and trace the evolution of policy discourse across different stakeholder groups (Aji, 2025; Nango et al., 2025). This approach facilitates the synthesis of scientific publications with heterogeneous characteristics, ranging from macroeconomic analyses and public policy studies to sociological case studies at the local level (Aziz et al., 2025). Through this process, the study inventories empirical findings and traces how the narrative of the MBG program shifted from a nutritional intervention agenda toward a political‒economic instrument with implications for rural economic transformation and rural‒urban relations.
In addition, this study adopts the realist review approach developed by van der Waldt (2021) to understand how the MBG policy intervention operates across diverse geographical and sociopolitical contexts in Indonesia (Aji, 2025). A realist review is used to address the question of “what works, for whom, and in what circumstances,” thereby enabling an explanation of variations in policy implementation across regions with different structural conditions. This approach emphasizes the analysis of causal relationships between centrally designed policies and implementation realities at the local level, particularly in rural areas and 3T regions (frontier, outermost, and disadvantaged areas: terdepan, terluar, and tertinggal) (Fatimah et al., 2024). Methodologically, realist reviews integrate context, mechanism, and outcome to explain the dynamics of public policy implementation (Pawson & Tilley, 1997; van der Waldt, 2021). By combining the meta-narrative and realist review approaches, this study identifies general patterns in the literature and explains why and how the outcomes of MBG implementation differ according to infrastructure conditions, institutional capacity, and local political dynamics. This methodological strategy enables a more comprehensive understanding of the potential of the MBG as an instrument to reduce urban bias, while also revealing the structural barriers that influence policy effectiveness across different regional contexts.
The literature search was conducted across two major academic databases, Google Scholar, and Garuda (Garba Rujukan Digital), to capture Indonesian context-specific studies. The search period was restricted to publications from 2024 to 2026, as the MBG program under the current administration was newly launched in late 2024. However, foundational theoretical texts (e.g., Lipton, 1984; Bernstein, 2010) and global school feeding frameworks (e.g., World Bank, 2009; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2018) were exempt from time restrictions to provide a theoretical grounding. The search strings used combined the following keywords: ("Makan Bergizi Gratis" OR "MBG" OR "Free Nutritious Meals" OR "school feeding") AND ("political economy" OR "urban bias" OR "rural development" OR "fiscal" OR "supply chain" OR "3T regions" OR "farmers' welfare").
Explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to ensure the relevance and quality of the reviewed literature. A publication was included if it (1) was a peer-reviewed journal article, official government report, or credible policy analysis; (2) specifically discussed the MBG program in Indonesia or directly comparable home-grown school feeding models; (3) addressed the political, economic, fiscal, logistical, or spatial justice dimensions of the policy; and (4) was available in full text. Publications were excluded if they (1) were opinion pieces, news articles, or commentaries lacking empirical or analytical rigor; (2) focused purely on clinical or micronutritional outcomes (e.g., specific vitamin absorption) without discussing systemic policy or economic implications; or (3) were duplicate records in the databases.
The initial database search yielded 142 records screened. After removing 38 duplicates, the titles and abstracts of 104 records were screened. Fifty-two of these articles were assessed for full-text eligibility. When the inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, 82 records were excluded because they lacked a political-economic focus. Consequently, 22 core scientific publications formed the final corpus for the qualitative synthesis.
The quality and relevance of the included literature were evaluated using a thematic-appropriate adaptation of the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) checklist for qualitative and policy documents. Each source was evaluated based on (1) the clarity of the research aim or policy objective, (2) the appropriateness of the methodology or analytical framework used, (3) the rigor of the evidence presented, and (4) the relevance of the findings to the urban bias analytical lens. Only studies rated as moderate-to high-quality were included in the final data synthesis.

3.1. MBG as an Economic Opportunity: The Rural Stimulus Potential
One of the main arguments for refuting urban bias in the MBG program is the utilization of local food resources (Andriyanty & Widyastutik, 2025). The reviewed economic analyses and projections indicate that the implementation of the MBG is expected to positively correlate with farmer welfare, proxied by the farmer exchange rate (NTP). The data show a strong relationship of 58.7% between the MBG policy and improvements in Indonesian farmers’ welfare, where the NTP score tends to increase by up to 1.8492 points after the program’s implementation (Andriyanty & Widyastutik, 2025). Through the mechanism of additional demand for agricultural products (rice, vegetables, eggs, and milk), producer-level prices in rural areas are projected to increase, which could directly increase the real income of farming households.
Within the framework of Lipton’s urban bias theory, the rural sector is chronically impoverished because the "terms of trade" are structurally turned against it, transferring surplus goods to urban centers (Lipton, 1984). MBG’s home-grown school feeding concept attempts to reverse this mechanism. By requiring Nutrition Fulfillment Service Units or Satuan Pelayanan Pemenuhan Gizi (SPPG) to source up to 95% of food inputs from local farmers, livestock producers, and fishers (Ayuni, 2025), the policy intervenes directly in terms of trade, aiming to retain rural surplus within rural economies rather than allowing it to be captured by urban intermediaries.
Theoretically, the economic multiplier effect of the MBG in rural areas can be inferred from strengthened demand, which directly creates market certainty for local producers. The program generates additional aggregate demand for horticultural, livestock, and fishery commodities that were previously volatile, thereby stabilizing producer-level prices. With regular procurement contracts to meet MBG kitchen requirements, farmers gain guaranteed purchase agreements for their harvests, resulting in projected real income increases of up to 1.5–2.0 times the Regional Minimum Wage or Upah Minimum Regional (UMR) (Andriyanty & Widyastutik, 2025). Simultaneously, new economic activities emerge within supply chains, ranging from crop collection and initial processing to the distribution of food inputs to nutrition-service units. In aggregate, the program is projected to absorb up to 1.5 million direct workers, particularly housewives and unemployed youth engaged in kitchen operations, packaging, and logistics distribution (Andriyanty & Widyastutik, 2025; Thawley et al., 2024).
Additionally, multiplier effects arise from the redistribution of farming household income. In many rural areas, food expenditures can account for approximately 60% of total household income; thus, providing free meals to schoolchildren directly reduces household consumption burden (Andriyanty & Widyastutik, 2025; Beruh & Lusiana, 2026). This reduction increases discretionary income, which can be allocated to productive investments. Therefore, based on these theoretical projections, the MBG has the potential to function not only as a nutrition program but also as an economic redistribution instrument that accelerates sustainable local economic circulation in rural areas.

3.2. Infrastructural Constraint: Spatial Inequality in Logistics and Standards
Although the MBG program is, in theory, oriented toward rural areas, a critical analysis of the reviewed empirical literature reveals physical constraints that reflect spatial inequality. The synthesized literature suggests that logistics infrastructure in rural Eastern Indonesia (Papua, NTT, and Maluku) still lags significantly behind that in urban regions in Java (Fatimah et al., 2024). A reasonable inference from the literature is that urban bias in program implementation is evident in the disparity in logistical facilities between urban and rural areas. The absence of cold chain systems and cold storage facilities in many rural locations causes fresh food from local farmers to be vulnerable to spoilage before distribution to beneficiaries. Most rural distributors still rely on motorcycles or open-bed vehicles without specialized refrigeration systems, even though fresh food items are highly sensitive to heat exposure (Khatmawati & Putri, 2026). Consequently, schools or nutrition service units in rural areas are often forced to rely on supplies from urban regions with more adequate infrastructure, limiting the absorption of local economic potential.
Critically, these logistical constraints must be analyzed through Lipton’s assertion that the state apparatus designs institutional rules based on "urban efficiency logic," thereby structurally disregarding rural realities (Lipton, 1984). In the MBG, this urban efficiency logic is codified through logistics standards and SPPG kitchen requirements, specifically, the capacity to produce approximately 3,000 portions per day. These rigid standards do not align with the electricity, water supply, and basic infrastructure capacities of remote areas. This is not merely a technical mismatch but a manifestation of institutional urban bias. By imposing urban-centric operational standards, the state structurally disqualifies rural producers and local Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs) from participating in supply chains.
This mismatch structurally hinders local providers from meeting technical requirements, creating a reasonable inference that large urban vendors are likely to dominate food procurement chains in rural areas. Consequently, vendor dominance shifts from rural to urban capital producers. This reproduces rural subordination by converting rural areas into mere consumption zones for urban-produced goods, directly validating Lipton’s thesis that development policies are captured by urban elite alliances to extract the greatest benefits from programs intended for rural communities (Lipton, 1984). Furthermore, documented patterns indicate that urban bias is reflected in the centralized pattern of program pilot testing and supervision, which is predominantly conducted in areas with strong infrastructure capacity, such as Tangerang, Bogor, and Jakarta (Aji, 2025; Kiftiyah et al., 2025; Rahayu, 2025). The concentration of oversight in urban centers creates a "blind spot" for rural systemic failures, as implementation standards are benchmarked against urban successes, leaving rural areas exposed to greater risks, as evidenced by the reported food poisoning cases in areas with limited kitchen capacity.

3.3. Political Risk: Elite Patronage and Microeconomic Dispossession
Within the dimension of development politics, the MBG program should not be understood merely as a nutritional intervention but rather as a site of power contestation, where the interests of local and central actors intersect (Agustini, 2025; Beruh & Lusiana, 2026). Theoretically, Lipton argues that the urban class—including bureaucrats and political elites—tends to dominate state machinery to channel surplus resources according to its interests (Lipton, 1984). Operationally, the National Nutrition Agency or Badan Bergizi Nasional (BGN) manages the MBG with massive central budget allocations, whereas at the local level, implementation is carried out through SPPGs involving coordination among local governments, village authorities, and SMEs (Beruh & Lusiana, 2026; Dzakiyah et al., 2025).
A deeper application of urban bias theory reveals that MBG procurement rules serve as a critical mechanism for elite capture and surplus-extraction. Literature reviews of local implementations, such as findings in Southeast Aceh Regency, reveal that the mechanism for selecting food vendors can be exploited by village elites to build political loyalty networks through the distribution of procurement contracts to specific interest groups (Beruh & Lusiana, 2026). In Lipton’s framework, local elites function as extensions of the urban class—they are rural brokers who facilitate the extraction of state surplus. By controlling vendor selection, these elites ensure that lucrative procurement contracts are channeled to urban-connected vendors or local rent seekers rather than independent rural producers. This shifts the program’s orientation from nutritional improvement and rural empowerment to political consolidation and rural subordination.
Furthermore, the current MBG policy design risks marginalizing microeconomic actors. Field observations indicate that school cafeteria vendors in rural areas reported drastic income declines—up to 70%— because students received free meals (Hermawati et al., 2025). Without inclusive strategies that integrate local vendors into the supply chain, MBG presents a normative risk of driving "capital dispossession" among small rural economic groups in pursuit of central technocratic targets (Azzahra et al., 2025; Hermawati et al., 2025). Additionally, bureaucratic centralism reinforces the erosion of autonomy in schools. Schools often function as passive beneficiaries without the authority to determine menus or select vendors, as strategic decisions are centralized within SPPGs (Dwi et al., 2025). The gap between policy architects at the central level and frontline implementers hinders program adaptation to local needs and increases administrative costs and the risk of budget leakage (Thawley et al., 2024). The government’s centralized communication pattern also limits public access to information regarding implementation challenges, creating bureaucratic “dark spaces” that weaken accountability (Dzakiyah et al., 2025).

3.4. Fiscal Trade-off: The "Robin Hood" Burden and Budget Substitution
The MBG program is frequently labeled a “Robin Hood” policy—an instrument for redistributing state resources to support the most vulnerable groups (Khatimah et al., 2025). However, through the lens of urban bias theory, fiscal allocation is the primary instrument of rural subordination. Lipton (1984) argues that the state systematically squeezes the rural sector by underinvesting in rural productive infrastructure while taxing or diverting rural surpluses to fund urban-convenient consumption. The reviewed policy documents indicate that the government allocated IDR 71 trillion in the 2025 draft state budget for the initial phase of the MBG, which is projected to expand to between IDR 400 trillion and IDR 500 trillion by 2029 (Aji, 2025; Nurmansyah & Fitriani, 2025; Thawley et al., 2024).
Critically, the fiscal dynamics of the MBG Program reveal anomalies that reinforce the urban bias thesis while posing risks to the long-term development stability. The magnitude of government spending commitments raises concerns regarding Indonesia’s fiscal sustainability. From a political economy standpoint, this aligns with warnings that developing countries often undertake large-scale consumption spending to secure political legitimacy, potentially triggering macroeconomic pressures (Blomqvist & Lundahl, 2002; Lipton, 1984). Redistributive policies framed as “Robin Hood” approaches carry a plausible risk of generating budget-squeezing effects, where funding for productive rural sectors may decline to support consumption-based programs (Dwijayanti, 2024).
The mechanism of budget substitution in the MBG directly reflects urban bias in resource allocation. There is a documented risk that essential rural development funds, such as village road improvements or educational facilities, may be diverted to finance the large-scale consumptive spending of MBGs (Agustini, 2025; Ayuni, 2025; Waluyo, 2025). Recent observations of cuts to higher-education funding, reductions in research financing, and cancellations of infrastructure projects provide early empirical signals of budgetary contestation (Aprillia & Azzahra, 2025; Ayuni, 2025; Kiftiyah et al., 2025). This fiscal trade-off is structurally biased: long-term rural productive capital (infrastructure, human capital investment) is sacrificed for a consumptive program that, as shown in the infrastructural constraint analysis, predominantly benefits urban vendors. This reproduces rural subordination by keeping rural areas dependent on state consumptive transfers rather than building their structural economic independence.
Furthermore, MBG’s fiscal dynamics highlight disparities in regional fiscal capacity, which may exacerbate spatial inequality. Discussions have emerged regarding the contribution of regional budgets (APBDs) to support MBG operations. Encouraging regional contributions could increase fiscal burdens for disadvantaged 3T regions with limited local revenue, potentially reducing allocations for basic healthcare services and rural infrastructure improvements (Herdiana, 2025; Rahayu, 2025; Ritonga & Sazali, 2025). Moreover, Indonesia’s complex bureaucracy generates high collection costs, leading to administrative inefficiencies and increasing the risk of leakage through rent-seeking practices at the local level (Lipton, 1984; Thawley et al., 2024; Oktawila et al., 2025). These conditions are compounded by sociopolitical tensions, such as student protests reflecting resistance to government fiscal priorities, indicating fragile policy legitimacy and a dilemma between short-term welfare goals and long-term structural development (Maulana et al., 2025; Waluyo, 2025).

The implementation of the MBG Program in Indonesia serves as a critical testing ground for the government’s commitment to addressing urban bias. As demonstrated in this theory-driven literature review, the analysis separates MBG dynamics into four distinct analytical pillars. First, as an economic opportunity, synthesized evidence suggests that MBG has the potential to function as a positive catalyst for rural economies through the absorption of local agricultural products and the creation of jobs. Second, regarding infrastructural constraints, documented logistical limitations in 3T regions strongly suggest that urban vendors will dominate procurement due to rigid standards and the absence of cold chains in rural areas. Third, concerning political risk, the structural design of the MBG opens space for local elite patronage and the marginalization of microeconomic actors, such as school canteen vendors. Fourth, in terms of fiscal trade-offs, massive allocation creates pressure on financing sustainability and raises the risk of budget substitution away from productive rural sectors.
As a normative warning, if not managed in accordance with good governance principles, the MBG risks becoming a consumptive social assistance policy in which capital flows back to large urban vendors, whereas rural areas remain mere recipients of food distribution without sustainable economic empowerment. The policy implications of the MBG call for a more decentralized and inclusive approach to local economic development. The central government should grant greater autonomy to villages and local governments in determining food suppliers, with the requirement that at least 95% of the food ingredients be sourced from local MSMEs surrounding schools. Moreover, investing in logistics infrastructure, particularly in 3T regions, is essential. Digital transparency should also be enhanced through community-based reporting systems to ensure that large-scale budget allocations remain accountable and protected from rent-seeking practices. Furthermore, integrating school cafeteria vendors as cooking partners or distribution agents is an important step in preventing capital dispossession. Thus, the MBG should be understood not merely as a nutrition program but also as a development instrument capable of strengthening food security, reducing regional disparities, and promoting sustainable rural economic transformation.