A/HRC/9/23 page 31 8. The impact of the increase of food prices on international markets has been severe on net food buyers in countries in which the consumers are insufficiently insulated from such impacts. Particularly at risk are the landless labourers and the urban poor. But among the losers are also a large number of smallholders, themselves net food buyers, and who are unable to benefit from the increase in prices on the international markets, because the increase occurs at a time when the price of their inputs hits record levels and because they are not connected to global supply chains.58 At the same time, others have benefited: global 58 It has been argued by some analysts that since 1° poverty is concentrated in the rural areas, 2° this is driven by low and declining food prices and 3° the net food sellers are the very poor, an increase in food prices might have a positive impact on poverty. M. Ataman Aksoy and Aylin Isik-Dikmelik (“Are Low Food Prices Pro-Poor? Net Food Buyers and Sellers in Low-Income Countries”, The World Bank: Washington, D.C., 2008) argue that although there are more poor net food buyers then sellers, about half of net food buying households is marginal net food buyers, and thus price increases will have a small effect on their welfare. In their analysis for nine countries the average incomes of net food buyers are higher than the average incomes of net food sellers in eight of nine countries. Thus, higher food prices will, on average, transfer income from richer to poorer households and be pro poor. Also they argue that incomes of the net food buying households in the rural areas depends on the expenditures of food selling households and an increase in that might positively impact the food buying households. However, this analysis presupposes that higher prices for food commodities on international markets will translate into higher prices at the farmgate - an assumption which, due to the current organisation of the food production and distribution chain, will be valid only in limited contexts, particularly in countries such as Vietnam with highly egalitarian distribution of land resources.