How BRICS is Reshaping the Global Food Security Agenda

Chiara d’Ecclesiis, Aditi Someshwar, Jacopo Vimini 

Food security has emerged as a central arena of geopolitical competition. This paper examines how the BRICS bloc leverages food security as a strategic instrument to expand structural, normative, and institutional influence within international relations. It argues that BRICS states employ food security not solely as a development objective, but as a multidimensional tool of power projection. The analysis is structured around four interrelated mechanisms: increasing structural economic leverage through control over agricultural production and inputs; shaping normative influence via alternative governance architectures; fostering political dependency and alignment among partner states in the Global South; and challenging the authority of established Western-led institutions.

Drawing on empirical data on agricultural production, fertilizer markets, trade corridors, and development finance, the paper demonstrates how BRICS can reconfigure existing food governance systems through initiatives such as the New Development Bank, the proposed BRICS Grain Exchange, and the BRICS+ framework. These initiatives enable the bloc to influence price formation and standards-setting while advancing narratives of South–South cooperation and food sovereignty. The findings suggest that BRICS-led food security strategies contribute to a gradual rebalancing of global power by contesting the dominance of Bretton Woods institutions and Western-centric trade regimes. Food security thus functions as both a material and symbolic lever through which BRICS seeks to advance a multipolar international order.