The geopolitics of food security: Can BRICS orchestrate a new agenda with ASEAN countries?

The BRICS group of new powers and emerging economies has developed food security as a key area of cooperation, and its members are now major actors in global grain markets. The group's 2024–2025 expansion has added new members and partners, including from Southeast Asia. This Perspective asks whether the enlarged group can use the new BRICS Grain Exchange (Exchange) initiative to orchestrate a new food security agenda for its participants. Drawing on the Jameel Index for Food Trade and Vulnerability, we map how BRICS expansion reshapes intra-BRICS trade in wheat, maize and rice, and identify where the Exchange could reduce food insecurity. The BRICS group's role as an orchestrator of internal and external institutional linkages is key to realizing food security gains for prospective Exchange participants. We argue that closer collaboration with the New Development Bank and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations can advance this a new food security agenda.