A/HRC/13/33 seed companies abuse a dominant position in the market to raise the prices of the inputs they sell to farmers.7 An addendum to this report (A/HRC/13/33/Add.1) presents the work of the Special Rapporteur on the issue of large-scale land acquisitions or leases. 5. This report builds on the work of the previous Special Rapporteur on this issue.8 For its preparation, the Special Rapporteur has benefited from his participation in the International Labour Organization (ILO) Tripartite Technical Workshop on the Global Food Price Crisis and Its Impact on Decent Work held in Geneva on 6 March 2009, and from other contacts with the ILO, as well as with the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF). He also commissioned contributions9 and convened a multi-stakeholder consultation in Berlin on 19–20 June 2009, hosted by the non-governmental organization European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and supported by the German Government. He had exchanges with a number of agribusiness corporations, both bilaterally and through the Consumer Goods Forum, a global network of retailers and manufacturers covering over 150 countries. II. The changing context 6. Food systems are currently undergoing deep transformations. The renewed interest in agriculture, from both the public and the private sector,10 led to foreign direct investment in agriculture rising from an average of US$ 600 million annually in the 1990s, to an average of US$ 3 billion in 2005–2007.11 The increase in direct investment is part of a larger transformation of the global supply chain in the agrifood sector.12 Commodity buyers (wholesalers) are larger and more concentrated than previously, and they seek to respond to the requirements of their food industry clients by increased vertical coordination, tightening their control over suppliers. The processing industry is rapidly consolidating, after an initial period during the 1980s and early 1990s during which the parastatal large-scale processors were dismantled. This sector is increasingly globalized and dominated by large transnational corporations. Global retailers and fast-food chains are expanding to reach China, India, Russia, Viet Nam, and increasingly southern and eastern Africa, and diversifying from processed foods to semi-processed foods and, increasingly, fresh produce. 7. In this process of expansion and consolidation, the procurement system too has been modernized: in addition to public standards, private standards have gained increased 7 8 9 10 11 12 4 See A/64/170. A/58/330, paras. 27–51. The Special Rapporteur gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the New York University Law Students for Human Rights, Transnational Corporations and the Right to Food, available at: www.chrgj.org/publications/docs/TNCsandRTF.pdf. See A/HRC/12/31, paras. 13–22. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, World Investment Report 2009. Transnational Corporations, Agricultural Production and Development, 17 September 2009. T. Reardon and J.A. Berdegué, “The rapid rise of supermarkets in Latin America: challenges and opportunities for development”, Development Policy Review, vol. 20, No. 4, (2002), p. 317; T. Reardon and others, Supermarkets and horticultural development in Mexico: Synthesis of Findings and Recommendations to USAID and GOM, August 2007; T. Reardon and others, “Agrifood industry transformation and small farmers in developing countries”, World Development, vol. 37, No. 11 (2009), p. 1717. GE.09-17776