A/HRC/13/33 IV. Addressing the specific needs of smallholders A. The challenges 28. Smallholders in developing countries, cultivating small plots of land often with little or no public support, are the single most important group of those who are food insecure in the world today. To the extent that they do not market their produce themselves, and lack storage and processing facilities, smallholders often face a very limited number of buyers. For smallholders, the key factor is the price they receive for their crops. In the next paragraphs the Special Rapporteur explores the initiatives States could take in order to protect the right to food of smallholders, and the measures which could be taken by the agribusiness companies to respect the right to food in their relationships with smallholders. The overall objective is to ensure that smallholders capture a fair proportion of the value of their products, despite the very unequal bargaining position in which they find themselves at the moment vis-à-vis commodity buyers. B. The role of States in protecting the right to food 29. By encouraging the diversification of channels of trading and distribution and by ensuring the viability of wholesale and local markets, States create a wider range of options for smallholders, thus improving their bargaining position in the food chain. In particular, it is vital that farmers are not forced to join the agro-export networks, and that they are sufficiently supported if they opt, instead, for the production of food crops for local consumption. This has not always been the case in the past; since farmers supplying the international markets reaped a disproportionate share of public support (in access to credit, to technologies, or to infrastructure), the choice for smallholders was often between switching to cash crops for exports, something only a minority achieved, or living off subsistence agriculture. A number of countries are now seeking to put an end to this imbalance, and this is to be welcomed. But more precise measures could also be taken. 1. Creating a wider range of options for smallholders: cooperatives, marketing boards, and public procurement 30. States have at their disposal a number of tools in order to strengthen the position of smallholders and allow them to reap a larger proportion of the value in their transactions with buyers. The provision of information about prices and the improvement of communication infrastructures are essential, allowing producers to improve their bargaining position vis-à-vis buyers and to transport their crops more easily to the markets, where they can obtain better prices from other buyers. In this section three other instruments are examined — farmers’ cooperatives, marketing arrangements, and public procurement — that States could explore in order to address the specific needs of smallholders. 31. States could support the establishment of farmers’ cooperatives and other producer organizations. When they were controlled by governments in the past, cooperatives sometimes captured value instead of ensuring fair revenues for farmers, and they were seen as inefficient. In many countries, parastatal cooperatives were dismantled during the 1980s. This led to the emergence of a large number of producer organizations, established on their own initiative.32 For small producers, grouping together presents a number of 32 GE.09-17776 For instance, between 1982 and 2002 the percentage of villages with producer organizations rose from 8 per cent to 65 per cent in Senegal and from 21 per cent to 91 per cent in Burkina Faso. It is estimated that 250 million farmers in developing countries belong to one association. See World 11