Brics+: How SA farmers can target high-value export opportunities

Following the first article, Brics+ offers new horizons for SA’s agri-trade, Buhlebemvelo Dube, economist for trade research at the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC), unpacks in part two how South Africa can turn Brics+ membership into real trade gains.

Recent trade figures from the International Trade Centre (ITC), as depicted by Figure 1 below, underscore the untapped potential of agricultural exports into Brics markets, particularly China and India.

Despite agricultural exports’ value to Brics reaching $1.1 billion in 2024, this accounted for less than 10% of its global agricultural exports, which stood at $13.7 billion in the same year. Products such as macadamia nuts in shell ($125 million), fresh oranges ($108 million), and greasy shorn wool ($198 million) represented leading export lines into Brics, yet their volumes remained modest relative to Brics’ aggregate import demand.

For instance, Brics nations collectively imported over $1.1 billion worth of fresh apples and $597 million in mandarins globally in 2024, while South Africa’s Brics-bound exports of these products amounted to just $70 million and $95 million, respectively, highlighting a significant supply gap that South African producers are well-positioned to fill.

Similarly, high-value commodities such as fresh grapes and pears, where South Africa holds a competitive and counter-seasonal advantage, remain underrepresented in Brics markets.

This persistent trade asymmetry is underpinned by a critical misalignment between South Africa’s export portfolio and Brics consumption trends, reinforcing the need for calibrated, product-specific interventions. These include targeted SPS protocol negotiations, logistics upgrades, and trade promotion strategies under the Brics agriculture cooperation mechanism.

Further analysis reveals an even deeper trade gap. While we exported approximately $1.1 billion in agricultural goods to Brics in 2024, Brics’ combined agricultural import bill surpassed $272 billion, placing our market penetration rate at a mere 0.04%. This stark figure illustrates the extent of marginalisation faced by South Africa within a bloc where it holds political membership but wields limited commercial leverage.

Aligning with Brics+ consumption trends

The 2025 Brics Rio Declaration offers a policy-aligned remedy by reaffirming core WTO principles, including special and differential treatment (S&DT) and NTB reduction. These provisions directly respond to structural hurdles impeding South African exports, such as SPS misalignment and regulatory opacity.

China has been a dominant and important trade partner of South Africa within Brics, with a 70% share in the total portion of exports. The Chinese market’s potential cannot be ignored, especially with the recent trade developments, which seek to further open up the market for African countries as a whole.

South Africa’s trade complementarity with China and India is robust, driven by their demand for primary commodities, a category under which raw and semi-processed agricultural exports fall. Post 2010, South Africa’s export surplus to Brics has widened, surpassing that to the European Union (EU) in key years, underlining trade creation rather than diversion.

However, intra-Brics trade is skewed toward low-processed commodities, limiting value-added agricultural exports. This underscores the need for targeted interventions to restructure export portfolios, aligning with Brics+ consumption trends such as ready-to-eat foods, dairy, plant-based proteins, and specialty crops (e.g., rooibos, macadamia, essential oils).

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The 2025 Rio Declaration provides an enabling policy environment which took a stance that reaffirms the rules-based multilateral trading system, which would enhance predictability for exporters.

By addressing these structural gaps, South Africa could strategically reposition its citrus, nut, grape, and wool exports into higher-value segments across Brics+ urban markets, many of which are shifting toward premium, health-conscious, and climate-resilient food products. Thus, a strong argument can be made to suggest that there is progress in creating a conducive trade environment for the bloc`s members, especially for South Africa.

The Rio declaration further had a strong emphasis on WTO reform, S&DT, and removal of NTBs, aligning with South Africa’s need for inclusive access rules, especially in agricultural exports. Moreover, the Brics partnership on food security and socially determined diseases offers pathways to integrate nutrition-sensitive agricultural exports (e.g., legumes, fruits, biofortified grains), aligning trade with development goals.

Sector-specific tariff negotiations

To capitalise on Brics+ dynamics, South Africa should:

• Negotiate sector-specific tariff reductions or quotas in Brics+ member states under the Brics agriculture cooperation mechanism.
• Pursue bilateral SPS harmonisation protocols, particularly with China, India, and Indonesia, to facilitate smoother cross-border movement of perishables.
• Utilise state-led export finance instruments such as Land Bank and the Brics New Development Bank (NDB) to finance agro-logistics infrastructure supporting export corridors.
• Target trade promotion efforts through the Agricultural Trade Promotion Strategy (ATPS) towards urban consumer clusters in Brics+ economies, where income elastic demand is shifting toward premium and health-based food products.

The Brics+ expansion marks a tectonic shift in global trade architecture with an opening that could decisively reposition South Africa’s agriculture sector. The 2025 Rio Declaration provides the institutional and policy scaffolding to address long-standing constraints such as tariff unpredictability, NTBs, SPS misalignment, and climate protectionism. Through product-specific trade-offensives, logistics reform, and harmonised standards, South Africa can unlock differentiated access into high-value Brics+ markets.

Yet this opportunity is not automatic. Without assertive, evidence-led diplomacy and agro-industrial upgrading, South Africa risks remaining a politically included yet commercially excluded partner. The challenge now is not whether Brics+ could unlock growth, but whether South Africa will act boldly enough to claim it.

• Buhlebemvelo Dube is an economist for trade research at the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC). The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Food For Mzansi.

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