Integrated Assessment of Sustainable Development of the Agro-Industrial Complex in the BRICS Countries: Evidence from China, Russia and India

Achieving balanced development across economic, social, environmental, and agricultural domains remains a critical challenge for emerging economies. This study conducts a comparative assessment of sustainable development in the agro-industrial complex of China, Russia, and India over the period 2000–2023 within an extended SDG-based framework. The methodological approach combines a multi-dimensional indicator system (37 indicators) with the Entropy Weight Method to identify indicators with high temporal information contribution and the Equal Weighting Method to evaluate long-term performance, ensuring both sensitivity to structural changes and cross-country comparability. The results reveal differentiated development trajectories: China demonstrates steady and balanced growth across all dimensions; India shows consistent improvement driven by progress in social and infrastructure-related indicators; Russia exhibits a more volatile pattern with relatively strong social outcomes but persistent weaknesses in agricultural performance. The entropy-based analysis indicates that the indicators contributing most strongly to temporal differentiation vary significantly across countries, with infrastructure and energy transition prevailing in China, natural resource dynamics in Russia, and social and digital factors in India. These findings suggest that long-term development trajectories in the agro-industrial sector are associated with different configurations of resource interdependence, institutional capacity, and resource-use efficiency.