A/HRC/7/5 page 17 D. New powerful non-State actors: transnational corporations 43. A phenomenon that affects the right to food is the increasing control of vast sectors of the world economy by transnational corporations.38 Today, the top 200 corporations control around a quarter of the world’s total productive assets. Many transnational corporations have revenues far exceeding the revenues of the Governments of the countries in which they operate. Concentration has produced huge transnational corporations that monopolize the food chain from the production, trade, processing to the marketing and retailing of food, narrowing choices for farmers and consumers. Just 10 corporations, including Aventis, Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta, control one third of the US$ 23 billion commercial seed market and 80 per cent of the US$ 28 billion global pesticide market.39 Another 10 corporations, including Cargill, control 57 per cent of the total sales of the world’s leading 30 retailers and account for 37 per cent of the revenues earned by the world’s top 100 food and beverage companies.40 44. Although the participation of private sector corporations in food and agriculture sectors may improve efficiency, such concentration of monopoly power entails a danger that will benefit neither small producers nor consumers. The design of genetically modified seeds for example, has largely been about creating vertical integration between seed, pesticides and production to increase corporate profits. FAO has revealed that 85 per cent of all plantings of transgenic crops are soybean, maize and cotton, modified to reduce input and labour costs for large-scale production systems but not designed “to feed the world or increase food quality”.41 No serious investments have been made in any of the five most important crops of the poorest countries sorghum, millet, pigeon pea, chickpea and groundnut. Only 1 per cent of the research and development budgets of multinational corporations is spent on crops that might be useful for the developing world in arid regions.42 45. Moreover, transnational corporations have growing power over the supply of water, which is increasingly liberalized across the world. In many cases, private sector participation in water services has been made a precondition for the provision of loans and grants to developing 38 See A/58/330, E/CN.4/2004/10 and E/CN.4/2006/44. 39 Erosion, Technology and Concentration Action Group, Communiqué, November/December 2003, Issue 82. 40 Ibid. 41 L.O. Fresco, Which Road Do We Take? Harnessing Genetic Resources and Making Use of life Sciences, a New Contract for Sustainable Agriculture, 2003, www.fao.org/ag/magazine/fao-gr.pdf. 42 P.L. Pingali and G. Traxler, “Changing focus of agricultural research: will the poor benefit from biotechnology and privatization trends?”, Food Policy, 27, 2002.