A/HRC/9/23 page 19 36. In the current discussions held at the intergovernmental level no reference has been made, to the role of agribusiness and global retailers in identifying solutions to the situation created by the increase in prices on the international markets. They are part of the solution, however. The gap between farm-gate prices (received by the farmers) and the prices paid by the consumer is widening, and while recent price increases hit consumers severely in many countries, they mostly do not benefit small-holders. This in turn can be explained by two characteristics of the organisation of the food production and distribution chain. First, at the horizontal level, the farming sector is increasingly dualized: while the vast majority of farms (85 per cent) are small-holder operations, 0.5 per cent of the world’s farms that exceed 100 hectares in size claim a disproportionate share of global farm income and public subsidies in industrialized countries.41 Second, vertically, agricultural producers face increasingly concentrated interlocutors for both acquiring inputs and selling their produce. Farming is one of the few businesses that pays retail prices for inputs and sells its products at wholesale prices.42 At both ends of the chain (producers and retailers) and in the middle (the food processing sector), the degree of concentration is particularly high: for instance, the 10 leading food retailers have a 24 per cent share of the $3.5 billion global market, and their activities in developing countries have expanded dramatically in recent years. 37. Private investment in agriculture is vital, and food processing companies and global retailers have a crucial function to fulfil by connecting farmers to high-value markets. But these imbalances in power are a major obstacle to the efficient functioning of the food chain. Since most large agribusiness companies are based in industrialized countries, this further worsens the imbalances seen in the global trading system. The World Bank has noted, for instance, that because of the high concentration rate of coffee roasters and retailers, the share of the retail price retained by coffee-producing countries Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Viet Nam accounting for 64 per cent of global production declined from a third in the early 1990s to 10 per cent in 2002, while the value of retail sales doubled. It also calculated that developing countries’ claim on value added in agricultural commodities declined from around 60 per cent in 1970-1972 to around 28 per cent in 1998-2000.43 This only underscores the importance of supporting small-holder farmers and their organizations, including in the poorest and most remote areas, to enable them to play an effective role in meeting the rising demand for food and thus to achieve an adequate standard of living, and of exploring with the agribusiness sector what contribution it could make to help achieve this objective. 41 Marc Cohen and others, Impact of climate change and bioenergy on nutrition, IPFRI, 2008, at 26. 42 For details, see Concentrated Market Power and Agricultural Trade, by Sophia Murphy, Ecofairtrade dialogue discussion papers No. 1, August 2006, at: www.tradeobservatory.org/ index.cfm?refid=89014. 43 The World Bank, World Development Report 2008, at 136.