A/HRC/9/23 page 16 26. It is in the light of this obligation that the policies promoting the use of agrofuels as a substitute for fossil fuels in the transport sector must be examined.33 These policies take various forms and it would be irresponsible to condemn them as a whole, by claiming, for instance, that bioenergy production to meet domestic needs and limit dependency on the expensive oil imports is the same as large-scale agrofuel production for export purposes; that bioethanol produced from sugar was comparable to the bioethanol produced from maize, or from other crops such as cassava, wheat, sweet sorghum and sugar beets, or that biodiesel produced from rapeseed oil was the same as the biodiesel from palm l or soybean oil. Indeed, not only should distinctions be made between different plants used as feed for fuel; in order to evaluate the impact on the right to food, the production methods used in each industry should be taken into account, since they have a different impact on job creation of, on the environment and food security. 27. Annex II offers a brief overview of the impact of the development of agrofuels on the enjoyment of the right to adequate food. An impact can be witnessed on three levels. 28. First, the pace of agrofuel development has significantly contributed to the increase in the price of certain agricultural commodities on international markets, threatening the enjoyment of the right to adequate food. It has been estimated that the number of people suffering from undernourishment could increase by 16 million for each percentage point increase in the real price of staple food;34 the food crops currently used to produce ethanol are also the crops that form the largest part of the diets of poor people, maize, sugar cane, soy, cassava, palm oil and sorghum provide around 30 per cent of mean calorie consumption of people living in chronic hunger.35 Such price increases are not per se problematic; under certain conditions, particularly if they benefit rural households who are net food sellers and if the net food buyers are protected by targeted measures aimed at increasing their purchasing power, such increases may in fact have benevolent effects, particularly in a dynamic perspective. Under current conditions, however, and owing to the sudden brutality of the price increases and our degree of unpreparedness, the negative effects far outweigh the positive ones, and this should be carefully monitored. 29. Second, since the production of agrofuels (particularly of bioethanol, which currently constitutes the largest proportion) tends to reinforce the concentration of land and the development of large-scale agricultural exploitations, it puts additional pressure on small-holders, and poses a threat to the use of land by indigenous peoples. It increases the competition for cropland and for water resources, and represents a threat to biodiversity. Though 33 See Asbjorn Eide, The right to food and the impact of liquid biofuels (agrofuels), study submitted to the Right to Food Unit of the FAO, May 27, 2008. 34 35 Mark Rosegrant and others, ‘Biofuels and the global food balance’, cited above. R. Naylor, A. Liska, M. Burke, W. Falcon, J. Gaskell, S. Rozelle, and K. Cassman, ‘The Ripple Effect -Biofuels, Food Security, and the Environment’, Environment, Vol. 49, No. 9, November 2007, at 41, citing from FAO’s Faostat, available at http://faostat/fao.org.