A/HRC/7/5 page 13 31. Wide disparities in economic power between States mean that powerful States negotiate trade rules that are neither free nor fair. Such rules severely affect small farmers and threaten food security, especially in developing countries that have been required to liberalize agriculture to a much greater extent than developed countries. The heavy production and export subsidies that OECD countries grant their farmers - more than US$ 349 billion in 2006 or almost US$ 1 billion per day - mean that subsidized European fruit and vegetables can be found in a market stall in Dakar, Senegal, at lower prices than local produce. Although developed countries, including EU member States, made promises at the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference in December 2005 to eliminate export subsidies that result in dumping, there has been little concrete progress so far. In Mexico, it is estimated that up to 15 million Mexican farmers and their families (many from indigenous communities) may be displaced from their livelihoods as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and competition with subsidized United States maize.22 32. It would be possible to achieve coherence by placing human rights at the centre of all government policy and by refraining from any policies and programmes that might negatively affect the right to food of people in other countries. This primacy of human rights is recognized in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action of the World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, 14-25 June 1993), where all States recognized that the promotion and protection of human rights were “the first responsibility of Governments”.23 Moreover, the General Assembly resolution on the right to food (A/62/439/Add.2, resolution XVII)24 stresses that States should ensure that their policies, including international trade agreements, do not have a negative impact on the right to food. B. Exclusion and discrimination 33. Exclusion and discrimination are particularly evident in the case of women and indigenous people, who are also among the most vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition.25 Women play vital roles in the production and preparation of food, in agriculture and in earning incomes to feed their families, and as mediators of nutrition education within the family, if they themselves are educated. It is now widely agreed that women produce 60-80 per cent of food crops in developing countries and play a crucial part in ensuring the food security of households. And it is increasingly recognized that the health of women is crucial to the health of entire societies, because malnourished women are more likely to give birth to malnourished and underdeveloped babies. New scientific evidence in nutrition calls for a “life-cycle” approach to nutrition which 22 Friends of the Earth International, “Sale of the century? Peoples’ food sovereignty”, 2003, www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/qatar_food_sovereignty_1.pdf. 23 See A/CONF/157/23, para. 1. 24 See footnote 8 above. 25 See A/58/330 and A/60/350.