Robert Garran and Maria Ceresa – Fears are growing among analysts in Indonesia and Australia that a poor rice harvest and sharp fall in government rice stockpiles will spark more riots in Jakarta and rural areas.

A researcher at the University of Indonesia, Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, warned that "maybe in the next few days there will be massive riots again in Jakarta to allow the people to get the food".

Indonesian economist Iwan Aziz said: "The stock of rice ... will be enough only for the next three months. So a food crisis is really on the horizon three months from now."

"The situation is very serious," Australian National University anthropologist Jim Fox said. "The crop is down, although we don't know how much because some is still being harvested.

"The islands directly to the north of Australia – Timor, Flores, Sumba and the Maluku Tenggara – are doing it really tough. They have lost their corn crop, and they are going to have to bring in a lot of rice," Professor Fox said.

Indonesia analysts fear that worsening economic conditions mean a growing number of Indonesians will not be able to afford rice and other staples.

Rising prices for fuel and electricity were a key factor behind the riots last month that led to the downfall of former president Suharto.

Rice prices have begun to fall after surging earlier this year, but the incomes of many Indonesians have been reduced so severely by the economic crisis that there are grave fears many will not be able to afford to buy the staple.

Professor Fox said falling incomes and difficulties distributing rice were a more serious problem than the overall rice shortage, which could be met by increasing imports.

Dr Aziz, speaking in a satellite interview from Washington DC, said there was little the International Monetary Fund could to do solve the rice shortage, except ease conditions for the next instalment of loans as part of the $US43 billion ($71 billion) IMF-led bailout package for Indonesia.