A/HRC/9/23 page 38 of agricultural commodities on the international markets. Estimates vary about the percentage of price increases which can be explained by the rise in demand for cropland and feed resulting from recent initiatives, particularly in the United States and in the European Union, aiming at encouraging the reliance on agrofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels.65 But there is a consensus that these initiatives have has a significant impact. The IMF estimated that the increased demand for biofuels accounted for 70 per cent of the increase in maize prices and 40 per cent of the increase in soybean prices.66 A recent study on the factors having led to the increase in internationally traded food prices from January 2002 to June 2008 concludes that “the most important” of these was the large increase in biofuels production from grains and oilseeds in the U.S. and EU. This study estimates that, while energy prices and related increases in fertilizer prices as well as the weak dollar could explain 25-30 per cent of the increase in food commodities prices, the remaining 70-75 per cent could be attributed to agrofuels production: Without these increases [in the production of feed for fuel], global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate. Land use changes in wheat exporting countries in response to increased plantings of oilseeds for biodiesel production limited expansion of wheat production that could have otherwise prevented the large declines in global wheat stocks and the resulting rise in wheat prices. The rapid rise in oilseed prices was caused mostly by demand for biodiesel production in response to incentives provided by policy changes in the EU beginning in 2001 and in the U.S. beginning in 2004. The large increase in rice prices was largely a response to the increase in wheat prices rather than to changes in rice production or stocks, and was thus indirectly related to the increase in biofuels. Recent export bans on grains and speculative activity would probably not have occurred without the large price increases due to biofuels production because they were largely responses to rising prices.67 USD 0.54 per gallon, as well as a biodiesel blenders tax credit USD 1.00 per gallon. The U.S. mandated 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2012 in its 2005 legislation and raised the mandate to 15 billion gallons of ethanol from conventional sources (maize) by 2022 and 1.0 billion gallons of biodiesel by 2012 in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. 65 An IFPRI study suggests price increases of between 16 and 43 per cent at best and between 30 and 76 per cent at worst, depending upon the commodity (Mark Rosegrant and others, “Biofuels and the global food balance”, in Bioenergy and Agriculture: Promises and Challenges, Peter Hazell and P. K. Pachauri, eds. (IFPRI, 2006); see also Marc Cohen and others, Impact of Climate Change and Bioenergy on Nutrition, IFPRI and FAO, 2008). Others consider that in the medium-term, when markets will be operating well, the impact on prices will be lower, averaging 5 per cent for most crops, although with significantly higher increases for certain feedstock crops like oilseeds, maize and sugar cane (The Gallagher Review of the indirect effects of biofuels production, The Renewable Fuels Agency, July 2008, at 57-58). 66 John Lipsky, First Deputy Managing Director, IMF, Commodity Prices and Global Inflation, Remarks At the Council on Foreign Relations, New York City, May 8, 2008. 67 Donald Mitchell, A Note on Rising Food Prices, The World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper No. 4682, July 2008, at 16-17.