A/HRC/9/23 page 41 development of large plantation-form agricultural exploitations for the production of agrofuels.73 One study estimates that as many as 60 million indigenous people will be driven from their lands, under customary ownership, to clear the way for biofuels plantations, if current investment plans are realized.74 Because much of the bioenergy industry relies on improved or genetically modified seeds which are protected by patents, it further aggravates the concentration of power in agriculture in the hands of a limited number of dominant actors, mostly large multinational corporations, further marginalizing smallholders.75 In many cases, despite commendable efforts made by the governments concerned in order to combat this phenomenon, the employment which is created in the plantations for bioenergy crop production, because of their scale and of the concentrated structure of ownership, is exploitative in nature.76 The expansion of monoculture plantations of soy, oil palm, jatropha, sugar cane, maize, cassava and other fuel crops, may also have detrimental impacts on biodiversity and an impact of diets, since in the regions affected the variety of local foods available may be reduced. In addition, it will increase the competition for scarce water between current landusers and bioenergy crop production, and aggravate water scarcity problems. While employment may be created by the agrofuels industry - in 1997, the ethanol sector employed one million in Brazil, 65 percent of which in permanent jobs77 - these benefits should be measured against these impacts, and in particular the potential violations of the right to food and the right to water which may result from such an 73 See International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Fuelling Exclusion? The Biofuel Boom and Poor People’s Access to Land, by Lorenzo Cotula, Nat Dyer and Sonja Vermeulen, www.iied.org/pubs/ pdfs/12551IIED.pdf; Rachel Smolker and others, The Real Cost of Agrofuels: Impacts on food, forests, peoples and the climate, Global Forest Coalition and Global Justice Ecology Project, 2008. 74 See Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Parshuram Tamang, Oil Palm and Other Commercial Tree Plantations, Monocropping: Impacts on Indigenous Peoples’ Land Tenure and Resource Management Systems and Livelihoods, Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, sixth session, New York, 14-25 May 2007, doc. E/C.19/2007/CRP.6 (7 May 2007). 75 Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Patents: Taken for Granted in Plans for a Global Biofuels Market, October 2007. According to one study, patents granted in the industrial biotechnology already increased from 6000 in 2000 to 22.000 in 2005, predominantly for biofuel production: see IATP and IIED, The multilateral trade and investment context for biofuels: Issues and Challenges, April 2008, at 20. 76 See FIAN, Fact-Finding Mission Report on the Impacts of Agrofuels Expansion on the Enjoyment of Social Rights of Rural Workers, Indigenous Peoples and Peasants in Brazil, April 2008. 77 J. von Braun and R.K. Pachauri, The Promises and Challenges of Biofuels for the Poor in Developing Countries, IFPRI, 2006.