Aids hampers self-sufficiency
2001-10-29 23:50
By David Brough
Stockholm - The impact of HIV/Aids is ravaging agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and will postpone Africa's dream of becoming self-sufficient in food production, a senior United Nations official said on Monday.
Marcela Villarreal of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said that she had not lost hope that Africa would achieve self-sufficiency in food production one day despite the millions of deaths of farm workers caused by Aids.
"I do not like to think it (self-sufficiency) would be ended (by Aids)," Villarreal, chief of Rome-based FAO's population programme service and an authority on Aids, told a seminar in Stockholm.
"I think this dream will have to be at least postponed," she added. "If we can develop better strategies ... I would like to believe there is hope."
FAO, which monitors food supplies around the world, estimated that in Africa's 25 most affected countries, seven million agricultural workers had died from Aids since 1985 and 16 million more might die by 2020.
Africa, with about 10% of the world's population, accounts for nine out of each 10 new cases of HIV infection.
Of all Aids deaths, 83% are in Africa.
"Aids has a huge toll on the agricultural labour force," Villarreal said.
"Most affected countries (in sub-Saharan Africa) are basically agricultural," she added.
Sub-Saharan Africa has borne the brunt of the disease.
FAO has projected that Namibia will lose 26% of its agricultural labour force to Aids between 1985 and 2020, Botswana and Zimbabwe will lose 23%, Mozambique and South Africa 20% and Kenya 17%.
Aids devastates household incomes
Villarreal said that in Ethiopia, average treatment and mourning costs exceed average annual farm incomes.
In Kenya, 49 û 78% of household income is lost when one person dies of Aids.
Villarreal said farmers in sub-Saharan Africa were shifting increasingly to less labour intensive crops as Aids spread.
"Labour is becoming a scarce resource," she said. "Farmers are producing less cash crops and less nutritious crops. This means that there is less money available in households."
"The decrease in the range of crops leads to a decrease in plant diversity and genetic resources," she added.
Eating less nutritious food increases vulnerability to diseases associated with Aids such as tuberculosis.
As productive farm workers disappeared, there were fewer people left to pass knowledge from one generation to another.
Social safety nets were undermined as farm workers died leaving ageing grandparents in charge of households and millions of Aids orphans.
- Reuters