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Small‐scale, subsistence agriculture in Java has an exceptional diversity of interplanted crops — a diversity that is declining as farm sizes decrease due to population growth and greater emphasis is placed on the most profitable crops for an expanding market economy. The nutritional consequences of these changes can be examined by examining interrelationships between household economic status, market involvement, dietary preferences, crops employed, crop yields and food consumption.

The large quantity of rice in the Javanese diet frequently leads to deficiencies in the production and consumption of calcium, iron, riboflavin and vitamin A. Mixed‐cropping fields and homegardens are the major source of these critical vitamins and minerals. The production of these vitamins and minerals is greater in fields and gardens with a greater diversity of interplanted crops.

Some Javanese families do not have …