The Rise of Agri-Powers

AGRICULTURAL POWERS – those self sufficient in food, fabric, and hydrocarbon production – once were unambiguously regarded as strategic powers. This has been true throughout history: societies which were not agriculturally efficient and abundant could never long or fully sustain strategic power. Now, once again, a new set of nations is likely to emerge in the 21st Century with significant regional, if not global, influence demonstrably based on their agricultural capacity and their ability to match capital, productive land, and emerging technology on a scale which was not possible in the past. These emerging “agri-powers” are benefitting from trends making agricultural commodities more strategically important, and will gain from having a significant agricultural base.

Unlike the second half of the 20th Century, the global strategic environment is set to become more fluid, and the criteria which marked “middle-power” status, such as access to sophisticated military technology, is likely to become less overwhelming in importance. Even the term itself will lose its relevancy as dozens of nations fulfil the original definition of a traditional middle- power.


In this period of global turbulence, a back to basics approach, which leverages agricultural surpluses for international sale, biofuel production and potentially, through biotechnology, industrial applications, may result in nations with a substantive agricultural sector, such as Australia, having a more prominent global position. Similarly, it could make smaller agri-powers attractive targets for larger, hungrier1 nations.

There are a number of nations which are potential beneficiaries from the trend favoring agricultural producers, especially those which are not already regional or global powers.2 For the purpose of this paper, substantial agricultural producers are defined to have grown at least 20-million tonnes of cereal crops per annum. This existing agricultural base could provide the ability for these nations to become emergent agri-powers. However, to succeed, they must organize their societies, capital markets and productive land in the most efficient manner to harness this trend, rather than be captured by it. Of nations with potential for significant agricultural production, Argentina and, especially, Zimbabwe suffer from governance problems and unstable economies3, but have the capability to transform to become key anchor points of southern Latin America and south-eastern Africa. The emergence of agri- powers has significant relevance to regional-level dynamics and is set to be a key strategic variable. However, this trend has not yet been studied or analyzed to any great degree.

Red Orbit