A/HRC/9/23 page 29 1990s, with the exception of a small increase in 1979-1980 and during the mid 1990s. These evolutions are reflected in the real value of the extended Food price Index of FAO. The index reached its peak in 1974 (250) and then it has been followed by a decline in real food prices till end of the 1980s (100) followed by a small increase in the mid 1990s, followed by a historical low in 1999. Between 2000-2005 it has being increasing at a rate of 1.3 per cent per year and has increased to 15 per cent per year since 2006, reaching a level of 160 in 2008. 5. The structural decline in the prices of agricultural primary commodities over the last 30 years clearly hindered the development of the agricultural sector in a number of developing countries. Prices on the international markets were depressed due to two factors: remarkable increases in productivity per hectare by mechanisation and the use of improved seeds and other inputs in certain developing countries while the average wages remained low; and public support to farmers, including in the form of export subsidies, in industrialized countries with high salaries. The result was that for many farmers in the South, there were few incentives to produce much beyond subsistence levels, even when they could achieve such levels - which often they could not. This was further aggravated by the retreat of the public sector from agriculture, in part because institutions such as marketing boards, because they were considered inefficient and at times mismanaged, were dismantled following prescriptions of the international financial institutions, and in part because too little of the public budget was invested into agriculture, rural services, and the development of infrastructure for the rural areas. Massive impoverishment of the rural areas and rural flight followed. A number of countries which previously were self-sufficient in food became net-food-importing in the 1980s.56 The 56 Developing countries had an overall agricultural trade surplus of almost US$ 7 billion per year in the 1960s. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), gross imports of food by developing countries grew with trade liberalization, turning into a food trade deficit of more than US$ 11 billion by 2001 with cereal import bill for Low Income Food Deficit Countries reaching over US$ 38 billion in 2007/2008.