Marcela Villarreal

Marcela Villarreal
FAO focal point on HIV/AIDS

Head of Population and Development Service

Perspective

How can agriculture face the challenges posed by HIV/AIDS?

The devastating impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture has been known for some time. For many, it is well known that the disease has decimated sub-Saharan Africa's agricultural labour force and will continue to do so for generations, depleting the region of its food producers and farmers. HIV reduces the productive capacity of the rural poor, limits their ability to buy agricultural inputs and generates a spiral of acute poverty. The loss of labour reduces the time spent on maintaining agricultural infrastructure such as terraces and irrigation systems and so hinders the medium and long term sustainability of agriculture.

At the earlier stages of the epidemic HIV/AIDS was predominantly an urban problem, affecting more men than women and those with relatively high incomes. Now the epidemic is rapidly moving into the rural areas, hitting those who are least well equipped to deal with its consequences. Today, those who are most HIV infected are the rural, the women and the poor.

In spite of its devastating effects on agricultural production and rural livelihoods, and in spite of the fact that up to 80% of the people in the most affected countries depend on agriculture for their subsistence, most of the response to the epidemic has come from the health sector. The agriculture sector has either remained silent or has adopted similar health-sector initiatives to counter the effects of the epidemic. Often Ministry of Agriculture staff have taken up functions that should be performed by their Ministry of Health counterparts, neglecting their own duties to ill perform others that they are not qualified to carry out.

It is unrealistic to expect that drugs will provide the solution to AIDS in rural Africa. In spite of the fact that there is a cheap, one-dose treatment for malaria, every year, more than 2 million people die from this disease. AIDS drugs are expensive, need to be taken in specific combinations in order not to generate resistance, need close medical monitoring, need an adequately nourished body and need, at the very least, to be taken with clean water. All of these conditions are far removed from the reality in rural Africa.

Effective solutions for rural areas rely on the agricultural sector and its capacity to reduce people's vulnerability to acquire the disease. The agricultural sector is in a strong position to assist in both the prevention and mitigation of the consequences of HIV/AIDS. Moreover, it has a responsibility to those people who depend on agriculture for subsistence.

What can the agricultural sector do?

An effective agriculture strategy has to respond to the implications of a dramatic loss of labour and loss of productive generations. It should develop appropriate labour-saving technologies such as: low-input agriculture; lighter ploughs and tools that can be used by older children, women and the elderly; improved seed varieties that require less labour for weeding; intercropping and minimum tillage. Attention must be paid to improving the nutrition of those affected by HIV/AIDS. Possible strategies could include: nutritional home gardens; use of improved crop management and plant varieties with higher yields; use of small ruminants for consumption, sale and manure; education and labour exchange requirements. Strategies must ensure that basic agriculture skills are transmitted to orphans and to the young generation and that local knowledge, including biodiversity and gender-specific skills are preserved. Ensuring food security, which will reduce widows and orphans' need to engage in survival sex to acquire food, will contribute to prevention of the spread of the disease.

Efforts must be made to reduce gender-based differences in access to and control of resources and livelihood assets - in particular access to land, credit, employment, education and information.

All of these strategies require the agriculture sector to be more creative in the delivery of services; to work multi-sectorally with other stakeholders and to provide a co-ordinated response. It necessitates a decentralised process in which the local capacity of rural institutions are strengthened and local safety nets supported to promote community-based initiatives. It needs to put people at the centre of policy.

How will agriculture have to adapt itself to the conditions created by HIV/AIDS?

The agriculture sector cannot continue with "business as usual" in communities where vast numbers of adults are dead, leaving only the elderly and children. The agriculture sector will have to revise the content and delivery of its services, the process of transferring agricultural knowledge which is essential to development, to farming communities. It will be necessary to develop appropriate technologies and to integrate indigenous knowledge. The challenge is to be able to deliver a responsive service when agriculture institutions are also suffering from acute staff shortages and the associated cost due to increasing HIV/AIDS mortality and morbidity. Agricultural research institutions can play an instrumental role in the mitigation of the consequences of the disease. Research is needed on new crop varieties that require less labour and inputs while at the same time providing the specific nutrients needed by persons living with HIV/AIDS. Seeds that can be planted at different times of year will allow farmers more flexibility to manage periods of acute labour shortage. Techniques or varieties that reduce weeding time can liberate women's labour.

Agricultural policy will have to become more responsible to HIV/AIDS concerns. Policies can contribute detrimentally to the epidemic, by increasing migratory patterns, for example, which are closely associated with the spread of HIV. Policy can also contribute to mitigating the consequences of the disease. By ensuring adequate markets and production opportunities and prices, farmers may avoid the need to migrate in search of other income sources.

The spread of AIDS is intrinsically related to development and food insecurity in rural Africa. Agriculture is an engine of rural development and can be effective in supporting people's livelihoods and in turn in preventing and mitigating the impacts of HIV/AIDS. The agricultural sector must seize this opportunity to redirect its priorities and to devote adequate funding to avoid the loss of the lives of the people it is intended to serve.

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